Kissing the Bully
by blank82
Summary: SUMMARY CHANGED. A valiant childhood rivalry put on hiatus. Six years later, dramatics will ensure and hormones will rage as Jess and Rory find that cupidity and overwhelming detestation are very much the same thing. Literati
1. Chapter 1

Kissing the Bully (yes, I do realize the title is a big spoiler. But so is the word Literati imprinted at the end of the summary.)

There was no doubt that Rory Gilmore had grown up.

She wasn't the awkward, fumbling 10 year old hiding behind coke bottle glasses and a paperback of Bridge to Terabithia anymore. Nope, Bridge to Terabithia had morphed into The Fountainhead and the glasses had gone adios. Half because she didn't need then anymore and half because Lorelai had accidently crushed them with the sole of her stiletto heels. What's more, she was actually (at the risk of sounding empathetically shallow)… attractive. The entire male population of Stars Hallow High could vouch for that.

Six years could do someone a lot of good.

At first Lane hadn't recognized her best friend. It had, after all, been well over the amount of time The Wrens went on break. But after a few minutes of thought process and catching a sight of the Radiohead album Rory had never returned stuck in the girl's locker, Lane came to her senses and rushed over, throwing her arms around her assumed-dead friend and nearly knocking her down as she did so.

"Rory Gilmore I thought you were dead!" Lane screamed, as the remainder of those in the hall at 8 in the morning stopped to stare at the scene unfolding, "My god, you look great! Hartford sure has some crazy chops!" After which she took the liberty smack Rory on the side of the head, "Why didn't you call me? Or write me? Not even a nice fruit basket, I would've settled for even an apple, or- Oh! Maybe a donut. It's tofu week at the Kim's house."

"Say no more," Rory replied, and proceeded to pull out a bag on which read two words that had Lane melting into sheer bliss. Dunkin'. Donuts.

"I knew there was a reason why I missed you," Lane gushed, mouth half- jammed with powdered goodness.

It was 4:00 when Jess Mariano when saw the girl. Sitting on his bridge. _His_ bridge. His. Okay maybe not his, but it might as well have been considering no one else ever went there. Whether it was in fear of him or of the fact the creaky crumbling wood was about ready to collapse any second, he didn't know. All he cared was it was his spot, and right now there was a girl. Sitting there. On his bridge. Reading Rand of all things.

He walked right up to next to her sitting form, expecting her to look up.

Nope. Still reading

He cleared his throat.

She didn't even notice him. Jess furrowed his eyebrows, what the hell could possibly be this fascinating about The Fountainhead?

He started to speak, "Nice bridge."

She didn't look up, "Yeah."

Jess continued, "The water's nice too."

"Yup. Not an iceberg in sight."

She still hadn't looked up. Jess furrowed his eyebrows, "Hey you wanna learn how to swim?"

"I'll pass."

"Huh," And with that articulate response, he shoved her in.

She resurfaced, sputtering, "I take back my iceberg comment. This thing is freezing."

"You have my condolences," was his reply, as he settled comfortably where she formally sat, flipping open his well worn Hemingway, "Buy a furnace."

"As soon as you pay me back. You ruined my book!"

"It was already ruined, anything Ayn Rand wrote was ruined the second her pen hit the paper."

"Oh sure. And what are you reading? The Sun Also Rises? Great book—So good in fact, I snored through the entire thing."

Jess glared, "Take that back."

"Buy me a new book."

"Never."

This time it was Rory's turn to glare. Jess held back a satisfied smirk as he turned back to his reading. Clearing his mind and focusing on the—

--Water. Cold, cold water. She had grabbed his foot and pulled in him into the water. The cold, cold, cold water. The 'holy mary mother of god my ass is going to freeze off' water. Cold, cold…

He glared menacingly at the girl who had pulled him in. First taking his bridge to read her precious, crummy Rand, now this? Nuh uh, this was too much. He didn't care who this chick was, he was going to—

Pretty. Really, really pretty. He mentally kicked himself on the head, don't think about that, he scowled to himself, you're angry. You're mad at her. This girl, however pretty, just pulled you in an icy-cold lake and ruined your book.

She squinted at the boy, "You look familiar."

"Yeah, America's Most Wanted. Maybe you've seen me in there a couple of times? I'm the one who murdered those terribly annoying Ayn Rand reading little girls with a chainsaw. You'd better run while you have the chance. Run Forrest, run!"

"As much as I love being compared to a mentally disabled pingpong champion, I'm not going anywhere," she declared haughtily, ignoring the cold shooting through her limbs.

"Is that so?" he questioned, cocking an eyebrow, trying to keep his teeth from chattering.

"I was here first."

"Uh, no, actually, I was here first. I've been coming to this place forever, and if you think I'm leaving because some Fountainhead reading nut is getting a little possessive, you're out of your mind."

"_Possessive_?" Rory stared at him in disbelief, "If I recall it wasn't my brilliant idea to go around pushing people in a half frozen lake just because they're taking up a figment of space on your precious bridge, _Jess Mariano_."

This time it was Jess' turn to squint at her, "Do I know you?"

Rory frowned, or tried to frown as much as she could when her lips her shivering like Frans' frequent muscle spasms, "Still as pigheaded as always I see. Good to know some things never change."

Jess inhaled sharply, involuntarily taking in a large amount of freezing lake water as he did so, "Gilmore?" he managed to choke out, "What… how the hell… oh fuck…"

"Hm. And I see in addition to being pigheaded your vocabulary and speaking skills have improved greatly too. Good job, at this rate, you'll be passing Pre-K in no time," then finally being fed up with the cold, she lifted herself out of the water, before turning around to say, "By the way, hypothermia takes 5 minutes to set in. Keep that in mind for when your brain finally catches up with your mouth."

Jess stared at her receding back in disbelief. And then, being a guy, let his eyes travel lower.

Rory Gilmore had definitely grown up.


	2. Chapter 2

Physical Education is the pits. No pun intended.

It's the only way in the world you could find twenty teenagers hanging from a jungle gym being chastised by a single, solitary, evil PE teacher.

And to think they say tyranny is dead.

"Can't… breathe…" Lane gasped, gripping the bar as if her life depended on it, "Gonna let go now…"

Rory shot her a wild glance, "No Lane you can't let go! Don't let go Rose, don't let go!"

"Too bad Jack. Bye…"

"Bye? No bye don't—

Too late. Lane was down.

Rory looked around. Most of the kids, like Lane, had already dropped from the bar and were taking the time to stop the spastic attack on their arms. Her eyes locked with Jess', who, god forbid, hadn't let go yet.

He returned the frown, "Let go."

Rory glared, "You first."

"Oh, very mature."

"And this comes from the king of maturity himself. I'm honored."

"I'm not the one who eats Froot Loops for dinner."

"I wouldn't be talking Mr. Frosted-flakes-for-lunch."

"Let go."

"Like hell."

If they had noticed everyone had already dropped from the bar except them, and the awed expression on the evil PE teacher's face, maybe they would've stopped. But they didn't, and the bantering continued.

"Nice shoes," he remarked, voice dripping with sarcasm.

"The better to kick you with, my dear."

"You couldn't kick a person if your life depended on it."

"Yes. You, however, don't count as a person. A spineless worm? Yes. A squirming little maggot? That too. But a person? You're dreaming."

"Then pinch me, because I would really like to wake up right now."

"I would, but my hands are attached to this bar here. I'll be sure to do so later. And maybe I'll even throw in a smack on the head or two, god knows you need it."

"Gee, you're too kind."

Meanwhile, the evil PE coach was getting very excited. Finally, he would not longer be an overweight, middleaged, take-out-for-dinner-every-night, scares-women-away-with-his-Al-Paccino-impression, guy. He would be an overweight, middleaged, take-out-for-dinner-every-night, scares-women-away-with-his-Al-Paccino-impression guy whose two PE students broke the school record for the longest arm hang.

He thought too soon. And as Jess and Rory engaged themselves in a furious foot-battle, all hope withered away from his poor soul.

"Hey!" the evil PE coach yelled, waving his arms, "No footsie! You only have 8 seconds till—

There was a crash. And with the two seething teenagers lying sprawled on the mat went the poor yet evil PE teacher's dream of ever becoming teacher of the year.

Half an hour later, Rory was left holding an ice pack to her head as Jess sat beside her in the nurse's office, fumbling with the rather unmasculine looking Hello Kitty band aid on his forehead.

And of course, Rory would have to name herself crazy not to take advantage of his humiliating situation, "Nice band aid. Very manly. Were they out of Dora the Explorers?"

"Shuddup. I'm not the one with the lump on my head."

"Yup. I have the lump. You have hello kitty."

Jess was in the middle of replying with some half assed comment when his pager began beeping. Scowl still fixed on his face, he fished it from his pocket and muttered to himself, mostly very impressive one line curses.

Rory watched on, amused, "Off to plant cherry bombs in the girl's bathroom?"

Jess scoffed, and after shoving the pager unceremoniously back into his pocket, pushed himself off the chair, "Wouldn't you like to know," he muttered darkly.

"Jess." He turned around, looking annoyed. Rory pointed to her forehead, "A piece of advice, I don't think your big thug friends will appreciate adorable kitty-cats the same way you do."

After watching Jess hastily rip the Hello Kitty band aid off his head, Rory settled back to stare at the clock ticking by. Wincing as she pressed a little to hard on the lovely blue bruise forming on her head.

"Stupid Jess," she grumbled.

Jess. The name brought back painful childhood memories. Mostly of disembodying sticky blue gum from her hair and crawling about feeling around for her glasses Jess had decided to hide under Smelly Nelly's chair. See? Painful.

She furrowed her eyebrows, what confused her though was he the fits of momentary generosity he would have occasionally. She would be bawling about her lost book and he'd hand her a tissue. Granted, it was he who had actually taken her book in the first place. And handing her the tissue was more like shoving it in her face and grumbling, 'Jeez stop crying already' but nevertheless, fits of generosity.

She groaned and buried her head in her hands, forgetting about the bruise momentarily. But only momentarily. She winced in pain and pressed the ice against her head, "Stupid."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Behold Lorelai Gilmore: the only mother that sends her child on late night break ins to the grocery store. And no, not because they were out of coffee, nor was it because they needed food. But because she had a really back craving for marshmallows. And no, not just the normal kind of marshmallows. Because, as Rory pointed out, they had normal marshmallows sitting right on top of the fridge.

"But I need my colors!" Lorelai whined.

"What about the white marshmallows? This is discrimination right here, Martin Luther would be very disappointed."

Nevertheless, Rory soon found herself being shoved out the door, despite of her protests.

Humming to herself as she returned from her trip to Doose's, colored marshmallows in hand, she stopped abruptly as she caught sight of a hunched figure shuffling slowly down the sidewalk.

As uneasy scenarios of shrunken clowns and chuckling Taylors carrying chainsaws ran through her head, she squinted in the darkness, "Hello?"

The figure grunted and uttered a few strings of very elaborate curses under his breath.

Recognition grazed her features. There was only one person that knew how to swear like that, she started towards him, "Jess? What are you doing in the middle of the sidewalk at night? Yes I realize stupidity plays a large factor in your inconceivably dense head but—holy crap!" she yelped, as she caught sight of his face, "What the heck did you do? Run through a firing squad?"

"Something like that," he muttered.

"Stupid," she remarked, rather unhelpfully. Which she realized and began to pull him towards her house.

He resisted, "What… the hell are you doing?" he questioned slowly,

"I don't want you falling over and dying all over my sidewalk. Cleaning up your blood on the driveway is not how I plan to spend my Thursday mornings."

"So you're letting me go in… your house?"

"Yes," she stopped to raise her eyebrows at him, "Do you have a problem with my house?"

Apparently yes considering he was looking at her as if she told him she was joining the mafia.

Rory stared at him impatiently, "Hey if you want to roll over and die, be my guest. I'd just rather you do it in a way that doesn't bloody and dirty up the front lawn."

He reluctantly trailed after her as she wandered over to the side of the house and pulled the window open, holding it in place as she gestured for him to climb in, "Ladies first."

Jess raised an eyebrow in question, "Wow. Making an injured guy crawl through the window. You're too nice."

"Hey, do you want to give my mother a panic attack? Poor thing just watched Chuckie, and I'm sure she won't hesitate to hit you across the head with a shovel and bury you under the house."

Jess grumbled something about disrespect towards the crippled under his breath but obliged, lifting himself up and tumbling over the ledge, wincing as he hit the floor.

"Okay Private Ryan," Rory said, crawling after him, "Remind me to send a letter of complaint to the firing squad. Next time they decide to attack you and beat you to a bloody pulp, I want dibs on the machine gun. And for a hospital ride to be included before you decide to scare the neighbors half to death with your Al Capone impression. Now that that's settled, where does it hurt?"

"Well to start with, my face is cut up."

"That's not too bad," Rory remarked, moving into the bathroom to find the first aid kit.

"Yeah, now add that with the pussing gash on my side, lovely blue bruises littered across my back, the weird pointy bone thing sticking out of my ankle, which, by the way, is twisted in a very disturbing angle, and you've got yourself a dead man in need of a hospital."

"… okay so moving past not too bad?"

"Try on the brink of screaming in agony and tearing my entire leg off all while smashing my head against the wall."

"Then with all due respect, I don't think you need a hospital. Try insane clinic. Or maybe a green room. Either would work."

Jess didn't bother to respond. Although the eye roll might suffice as a half response.

Rory stood in front of him, plopping his foot on a chair and holding the supplies one on each hand. Looking more like she was giving him a hair cut than anything, "Okay, so how's your foot."

Jess merely lifted the pant leg for her to see for herself.

She winced reflexively when she saw the damage, and tilted her head to the head, "How come your foot's backwards?"

"Long story."

Rory just stared at the foot, rubbing alcohol in hand.

"I think…" Jess said slowly, "You should start small."

"I think so too," She replied, still staring at his foot, "You know you're only supposed to have one ankle right?"

Jess held back a groan. This was going to be a long night.


	3. Chapter 3

Anatomy of the Human Body. The one thing Rory decided wouldn't be worth taking as a class. But as she sat there, adhesive bandaid in hand, second thoughts began to emerge.

Remaining completely oblivious to the fact that Jess was now lying shirtless on her bed, she briefly contemplated how he would look with his entire side removed, seeing there was no way in all her years of sticking bandaids she would be able to close a five inch gash oozing with blood and puss and… strange foamy… white stuff that she didn't even want to know was. But that was a fleeting thought, seeing that Jess was beginning to grow impatient.

"God, will you stop staring and operate already?"

She shushed him, her eyes fixed in a mix of disgust and awe at the wound on his side, "I'm concentrating."

"You're not even doing anything!"

"To your average, dolting eyes, yes. But see, there are these extra special people in the world called bloodstoppers who stop blood from pouring with a mere glare of their enchanted eyeballs."

Jess wasn't too amused. The fact that he was in current excruciating pain might have had something to do with it though, "Bloodstoppers are born as the seventh son of seven sons. And in case you haven't noticed, you don't have any siblings—

"That I know of," Rory finished, gingerly poking at the gash on his side, "Does this hurt?"

"No."

She poked harder, "How about this?"

"No."

She poked even harder, "This?"

"What the hell are you doing!"

"That's a yes."

"That is not a yes."

"Says the blind pride of the male ego."

"You're such a feminist."

"And you're a bipolor deluder who's fate of their stomach is in my hands, so I suggest you keep your mouth shut before I become fed up with your ludicrousness and decide it'd be easier just to cut your entire side out altogether."

That must have hit a nerve because he shut up after that. For the most part anyway. A few obscenities were muttered under his breath, but nothing so critical she would feel an urge to stick a fork through his festering wound. And as she started to carefully work on the gouge on his side, he stopped muttering altogether.

Little did she know Jess' thoughts were in a completely different direction. He forced himself to push away a brief, very rated R image in his mind involving Rory and something that would no doubt, cause her to kick his contorted ass all the way to England and back. All attempts were made in vain however, when he felt her hand accidentally brush against the skin at the top of his jeans. Forget England. Try Pluto. But on a different note, she was being… nice to him. Or as nice as you could be to a guy who used to flush your backpack down the toilet. He liked this-- maybe even a little too much.

Unfortunately, his thoughts (as well as his debauched envisions) were unpleasantly cut off when the true extent of her limited experience in doctoring came into play as a sudden searing pain interrupted any Good Girls Gone Wild worthy fantasies he'd have been having.

He let out a yell, "Holy Mary mother of—

She hastily dived across the bed and clamped her hand over his mouth. The thought that Lorelai was still awaiting for her colored marshmallows hit her like a ton of bricks. And her fears were confirmed when her mother's excessively blatant voice came ringing through the halls.

"Rory is that you?"

Jess, who had been secretly appreciating how she had herself obliviously sprawled on top of him, suddenly found himself being shoved him off the bed. Afterwhich Rory crawled over to dip her head down in level with his, "Don't. Make. A sound. You do and I'll never see you again."

"Is that a promise?" He questioned, taking slight amusement into seeing her so worked up.

"Yes because by then your head would be on it's way to the dumpster after my mother unceremoniously hacks it off with a sledgehammer. Now shush and get under my bed."

"If you insist."

And just as Jess flattened himself onto the ground under her bed, Lorelai burst into the door, pointing an accusing finger at her daughter, "Aha! You! Where are my marshmallows?"

"I… um," A nervous whimper involuntarily escaped her throat as Rory remembered the forgotten Doose's bag containing Lorelai's beloved colored marshmallows lying miserably on the driveway, "Funny story. See, uh, I was going to get your marshmallows. But then there was a robber."

"A… robber?" Lorelai questioned skeptically, "A robber in Stars Hollow?"

"Well I couldn't tell. But he looked like a robber. He- uh, had the whole Jack Black thing pulled off pretty well. And he saw the marshmallows and threatened to kill me if I didn't hand it over. So I did and he kind of… disappeared. Into the trees." And seeing the disbelieving look on her mother's face, she added, "They were really big trees."

"Uh huh…" Lorelai said slowly, and gingerly picked Jess' shirt from the ground, "That wouldn't be why there's a Motley Crue shirt lying on your floor, would it?"

"Oh that's uh," Rory struggled to formulate the words one would use to explain why there was a guy's, appearingly a guy that would be involved in a biker gang, shirt lying on the ground, "That's… mine."

"You… have a Motley Crue shirt?" Lorelai's eyes scanned the room, settling on the unmade bed where an apprehensive Rory was sitting, "Okay missy, either you've been sleeping with deluded bikers, which will get you into trouble, or you've been hiding this Crue shirt, refraining from letting me borrow it, which will get you into even bigger trouble."

Rory opened her mouth to respond, but was cut off by Lorelai, "And seeing I had just ransacked your entire closet looking for your blue shirt to wear this morning, my intuition and motherly instincts are very strongly advising me to go with the second option."

And still not waiting for a response, Lorelai started towards her desk.

"He's outside the window isn't he?" Lorelai denounced, already in the process of pushing open the window and sticking her head through as Rory mentally patted herself on the back for not going forth her original plan of shoving Jess out the window.

Frowning, Lorelai pulled back and studied her daughter. In which Rory attempted (and failed) to appear perplexed.

"I will find out what's going on. And when I do…" Lorelai trailed off as she started halfway out the door, sticking her head in and uttering melodramatically, "You. Will. Be. Sorry." And slammed the door as a last, theatric action.

Three… two… one…

Lorelai threw the door open again in one swift kick and looked triumphantly into the room. Where Rory appeared this time, genuinely bewildered. Then seeing there was still nothing out of place inside, Lorelai let out a defeated sigh and closed the door yet again, muttering under her breath, "I should have counted to five…" as she walked away.

Rory managed to let out a long breath she'd been holding and turned to Jess, who was in the process of getting up off the ground, "Good thing she didn't see you, because I don't think we have enough space to fit your dismantled body under the floorboards."

"Yup," Jess muttered half-heartedly, lifting himself into a reclined position beside her on the bed.

"Now I would normally on a regular basis, belittle you with antagonizing remarks. But seeing your foot looks like the equivalent to Mason Verger's face, and your entire side has run out of blood to ooze and is in the process of developing disgusting white gunk to gross us out with, I'll let it slide."

She glanced obliviously over at Jess, who was staring at her with an off look on his face, "You know, a hospital would be a good thing to have around here. Granted there's always the ever-lingering fear of angry souls haunting the place and locking everyone in where they'll suck all the nurse's brains out and castigate all of the doc—

No more words left her mouth as Jess had abruptly reached over to cup her face and press his lips onto hers.


	4. Chapter 4

There are very few moments in one's life, especially a Gilmore's considering that shutting up didn't play a part in their vocabulary, where they're stunned to the point of subconscious speechlessness. But this, without a doubt, qualified as one of those moments. And he had done it. Jess Mariano had achieved the unimaginable. He shut up a Gilmore.

Now if he had stuck around afterwards, maybe there would've even been a little award ceremony to follow. But alas, he had escaped out the window, or as best as you could escape with a gash on your side and a disproportioned foot.

Which went unnoticed by Rory considering she was, at the very moment, in a state skimming the brink of paralysis.

She got… kissed?

By Jess?

There was really only one conclusion she could draw from this. Well, two. But she'd really rather not think that Howard Stern was God. Take out those iron bodysuits folks, 'cause the acropolyse is arriving any day now.

Her shock soon gave way to panic however. Was it bad? Did she scare him away with her atrocious kissing skills? Damn it why hadn't she become a whore and made out with Chuck Presby in the second grade when she had the chance? For a split second she even considered going after Jess and asking him how good or bad of a kisser she was. But just as she poised herself to jump out the window, she realized that it might look a tad bit desperate if shewent off chasingafter him demanding to know why the hell he felt obliged smack into her lips with his mouth. Deciding finally, to weasel it out of him the next day at school.

So you could imagine her annoyance when Jess decided not to show up at school that day. Of course, being Jess, he decides not to go to school a lot. But that didn't stop the gripping fear that it had something to do with the fact she was such a horrible kisser that he fell over and died from the aftershock on the way home forever to be buried in the ground beneath Babbette's garden gnomes.

Highly unlikely, she decided, but she made a mental note to check the gardening grounds on her way home. Just to be sure.

Lorelai, that morning, hadn't been too conspicuous. She had, at one moment much to Rory's panic, mentioned something about seeing 'a certain something in the street last night.' Which in the end, had turned out just to be her bag of colored marshmallows.

Rory frowned, making her way from the bus stop and pushing into the diner, glancing nonchalantly around the bustling room. No Jess in sight.

She looked over at Luke, who was red in the face trying to convince Kirk that yes, the yellow runny stuff in his eggs was called yolk and yes, it was supposed to be there. With that, she ducked into the curtain, starting up towards the apartment.

She slowly, ever so slightly turned the doorknob and pushed the door open just a crack. Squinting into the light and—

"Jeez, come in already. Your Nancy Drew impersonation is in need of work there."

"Jess," she greeted weakly.

He was lying on the couch, foot propped up, crutches at his side, and book in hand. The Life of Pi, she noted with approval. A big step up from Hemmingway

"You gonna come in?" he questioned, slightly amused.

She sheepishly stepped into the apartment, fiddling with her backpack. The silence was smothering, "So, uh, how's your foot?"

"Broken."

There you have it. Jess Mariano, king of monosyllabicism.

"So…" Rory replied slowly, tugging nervously at her sleeves, "Uh, that why you weren't in school today?"

"Yup," and, as if reading into her disappointment, he added, "That, and hospitals are filled with big dumbass time wasters all stuffed together under one roof."

"Oh. Well this is just a possibility but maybe they were trying to fix your foot?"

"You don't need ten different guys in a room armed with twenty different kinds of tweezers to fix a single broken limb."

"Uh, hello Sherlock. Did you see your foot last night? I'm surprised it was only twenty and not four hundred."

He seemed to not have heard her, "Huh."

More silence.

She twisted the sleeves of her shirt awkwardly, "So… what happened to your foot?"

Jess slammed the book shut, "You don't shut up do you?"

"Not unless threatened with hedge clippers … do you have hedge clippers?"

"No."

"Then I don't shut up. So what happened to your foot?"

"A dog ate it."

"We have animal control."

"You know what happened."

"Uh, actually, no. I found you on the street, asked what happened, nothing. I took you home, asked what happened, nothing. I cleaned you up… was about to ask what happened, didn't get around to it, but no matter. Because I'm sure you'd still say nothing."

"I got in a little fight. It's no big deal."

"When you're foot looks like it's about to fall off, I actually find it a just a tad past no big deal."

Maybe she'd pushed a little too far. Because Jess was starting look pretty pissed off, "What are you, my mother?"

She scoffed, "Let's hope not. You don't kiss your mother like that do you?"

"So is this that what you're here about?"

"As a matter of fact, yes. Because in my very, very limited experience with kissing I tend to find it exceptionally unnerving when a guy, or in this case a cross between a monster and a jackass, decides to kiss you straight out the blue and run away. No 'thank you.' No 'I'm sorry.' No 'Oh gee that was so bad I think I'll roll out the window.'"

He stared at her in disbelief, "Is that what you wanted me to say? 'That was so bad I think I'll roll out the window?'"

"It would have cleared a few things up!"

"Okay. _Fine_," he threw his book down and jumped off the couch, balancing on his good foot and grabbing her face in his hands, forcing their mouths together in a hard deep kiss before pulling away, "Thank you, I'm sorry, and oh gee that was so bad I think I'll roll out the window! You happy!"

"Very!"

"Then get out!"

"I can't do that!"

"Why?"

"Because my face is being held captive in your evil clutches."

It was then he noticed he still had his hands on her face, where he quickly let go, glaring, "Get out, I have things to do."

"Obviously not homework, huh? Another gangbanging maybe? Because really, who needs two legs anyway? And hey, once walking's out of the way, maybe they could get to work on knocking your mouth off your face, it would save me, and the entire female population from Stars Hollow to New York for that matter, a lot of trouble! "

He stared daggers in her direction, "What I do doesn't concern you. So stay out of my life."

"Stay out of mine!"

"Fine!" there was a pause before he continued, "Normally this would be the point where I leave, slamming the door in a last dramatic finality, but unfortunately, ten out of ten doctors have said I'm in no shape to be rolling down a flight of stairs." Another pause, "So…"

Rory rolled her eyes, "Fine!" she growled, stomping and slamming the door behind her for good riddance.

OOO

The next day at school was hell. A regular burning pit. Complete with devil horns.

Jess, much to everyone's surprise (and dismay), was actually in school that day. Spending the majority of his time making out with Shany… Sherrie… gah, whatever her name was. At several times through that ordeal, Rory found herself going from disgusted, to curious, to awed as to whether or not they could actually breath with all that… suckage.

It didn't help matters at all he had somehow insisted on sitting right in front of her.

So she forced herself to fix her gaze on the board, concentrating entirely on the low hypnotizing lecture of the monotonal nasal-congested history teacher, amusing herself by counting how many times the loose skin hanging on his neck bobbed every time he drawled out the word 'fascinatingg…'

She'd just hit 37 when a very disturbingly tall boy walked in. A nervous smile on his face. Like a puppy dog, Rory thought.

Jess, having noticed a slight shift in the direction of Rory's interest, broke off his kissing with… whatever her name was, to glance coolly at the nervous looking… tall… guy at the door. The guy's eyes were skimming the crowd of students like a sheep surveying a pack of hungry wolves, before finally landing on Rory. Where she offered him a reassuring smile and in which he broke into a goofy grin in response.

Jess almost laughed at the pathetic giddiness in the boy's eyes, you would've thought the guy had never touched a girl in his entire hormonal driven teenage life. Dean, the teacher had called the kid. Dean. What kind of name was that?

But Jess soon found the amused smirk on his face fading as Dean, goofy grin and all, plopped down in the seat right next to Rory.

Rory turned her attention to the guy. He seemed nice, she mused, A little tall, but really, who could control their genetically-inherited glands?

"I'm Dean," he said, grin still intact.

"Rory," she replied. A beat, "Short for Lorelai. Courtesy of my mother in her delirious stage of post-delivery room vanity. "

Jess chose that moment to turn around in his seat, glancing briefly at Rory before focusing his attention entirely on Dean, "Hey, haven't I seen you around before?"

"Yeah," still grinning, "I work at Doose's."

"Right, right. And let me say, those beans around looking good. Stacked to perfection. But let me just say, whatever they're paying you to wear your hair like that, I think I speak for everyone when I say it's not worth it."

The grin disappeared. Rory glared, "Leave him alone Jess."

Still to Dean, "What's wrong bagboy? You need to Mary St. James defend you? The asparagus not up to par on their banter?"

The grin on Dean's face, having long since vanished, was replaced by a look that could be best described as what Frankenstein would look like if he was red and had floppy hair, "You'd better take that back."

"Or what? You'll batter me with celery?"

Rory, frustrated by the complete and utter stubbornness of the male specimen, shot Jess a dirty look, "God, just get back to sucking Shane's face off will you?"

He squinted at her, "Who?"

Rory looked at him exasperated, gesturing wildly towards a very bored looking Shane in the next seat, "Sha—The girl you've been mauling for the past… argh! Never mind. Your pig-headedness deludes me."

"And your's to me."

"Why don't you leave us alone," Dean cut in, glaring at Jess.

"I wasn't talking to you, ignoramus."

"What?"

"Ignor—my point is proven."

"Oh god," Rory slammed her hand on the desk in disgruntlement for blockheaded boys everywhere, "You're both ignoramus!"

The history teacher chose that moment to interject, "Miss Gilmore! Mr. Mariano… the other boy whose name I can't remember right now. How does detention sound to you?" he didn't wait for an answer, "Good? Good. So I'll be expecting you three after school… and Mr. Mariano, the windows will be tightly secured this time around, so I expect you won't be pulling that stunt again, hm?"

If it had been any different situation, Rory would've taken this time to amusedly imagine Jess climbing and falling out the open window, being 6-7 feet off the ground. Unfortunately, this was not a different situation; so instead, she was flooding herself with images of clown college and juvie halls.

And after school let out and a call to inform her mother of her misfortune, in which Lorelai had responded with a pleased congratulations and plans to go out and celebrate her daughter's first step to rebellion, Rory found herself sitting in a desk. Somewhere next to Dean, who'd taken a strange liking to following her wherever she went. She'd finally drawn the line when he attempted to trail her into the girl's bathroom.

Jess and Chuck Presby (yes the very same Chuck Presby who'd been Jess' partner in crime in elementary, where Chuck had chased her around in the second grade with a glue gun attempting to slobber her with kisses) sat in the back, identical scowls fixed on their faces. Occasionally shooting each other dirty glares.

And there you had it. All of Rory Gilmore's potential… admirers, you could say, stuck together in one classroom with barricaded windows.

**My head has driven right into another ditch so I can't think of anything right now. Thanks for all the reviews though.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Really really sorry I didn't update sooner. Well it took a couple dozen ladders and 10 feet of rope but I'm out of the ditch and now I'll stop this useless AN and leave you with the story.**

10 minutes into this hellhole we affectionately refer to as detention, Rory had grudgingly come to the conclusion that the entire Breakfast Club concept was bull, bull, and bull.

One, there was no way that Allison Reynolds would've woken up one day and decide to go sit in a classroom with Molly Ringwald just for the heck of it. And two, being immensely, indescribably bored as hell in a room full of future felons didn't teach you discipline. It didn't teach you much at all, for that matter. The only thing she'd learned so far actually was that the history teacher had a disturbingly large mole beside his nose she'd never noticed before and seemed to move around his face while he snored…

Oh wait. It's a fly.

Then never mind. She's learned nothing.

This was by far one of the worst situations she could come up with. Now just throw in OJ Simpson and she's pretty much got herself a genuine, bonafied hell pit. Jess and Chuck had been long gone since minute 4 when the teacher had cracked his first snore, they were probably off supergluing the basketballs inside the cart as we speak. Grumbling curses under her breath and silently banishing Jess to the farthest ends of the earth where he will strive on dead rats and green lagoon water, she set herself to the arduous task of listening to Dean decide on which position he was planning to play on the basketball team.

"I was thinking Center," he was saying, "Or maybe Power Forward. What do you think?"

She stared at him blankly. Because Gilmores don't play basketball, you see. Not unless equipped with full body armor and the ambulance on speed dial. Nor do they even begin to have an inkling of a clue what some position that sounds similar to that of an over-carbonated energy drink is, "Power forward?"

"Yeah, but you see, my coach back in Chicago says I'm a little rough on the edges, and there's a pretty good chance I'd end up knocking over half the opposing team in the process. So that wouldn't be to good…" No not good at all. She wouldn't want to be held responsible if half the high school basketball teams in the area were suddenly coming down with depreciative concussions and pulverized limbs. He continued to talk, "blahblah, blah blah, blahblahblah…" And then some.

Argh. Rory considered herself to be a pretty patient person. But this guy was pushing the limit. He'd been going on about sports for a good eight minutes, covering subjects ranging from playing positions, to Locker Room Blues 101. And that was just for basketball. There was still football, baseball, soccer, volleyball, and pretty much anything involving an inflated globule made for the sole purpose being kicked, dropped, tossed, or eaten.

Plus it really didn't help that the conversation was now taking an awkward nosedive into the lack of good laundry detergent. To put it bluntly, she really really didn't want to know about the state and fetid condition of the basketball teams' sweatbands. "Hey, uh, Dean?" She cut in quickly, before he could turn the subject around to unproductive deodorant, "I just remembered I left my book in the library…" she started to get up, "So this might take a while. Don't be afraid for me when I don't come back in couple minutes… or hours. Librar—

"I'll go with you," he interrupted, eagerly jumping up. Yes, jumping up. All 6-7 feet of him.

Not what she was expecting.

Recoil, "Oh, y-you don't have to—

She stopped there. This was getting nowhere. He was looking at her like accompanying her to the library was the sole purpose for his living.

There was sure to be a compliable reason as to why she didn't need Dean trailing her to fetch her book from the library besides the obvious that there really was no book and the entire purpose of leaving in the first place was to get 5 damn minutes without having to think of sweaty guys bunched together in the locker room sharing the same roll of deodorant. But so far, the making-up-excuses segment of her mind begged to differ. Because as far as lying went, Rory never really had any need of manipulating her mother into letting her go to a keg party. Half considering that Lorelai practically pushed her out the door when the time for a beer blast arrived, and half because she really wouldn't be caught dead streaking around a drunken orgy. Thereby diminishing any need for touching up on her poker face.

So, after mentally whacking herself upside on the head for her lack of adolescent rebellion, she reluctantly allowed Dean to follow her to the library, who was indeed turning the subject over to anti-perspirants.

"Axe never works," he was saying, "Which is bad because everyone uses it. Because girls like it, you're a girl, why do you like Axe?"

"To be honest, I don't really pay much attention to popular deodorant trends of the month," she stopped short at that. No, not because Dean was describing at the moment in painful excruciating detail what athlete's foot looks like… okay maybe a little. But the main reason as to why she was currently grabbing Dean's arm and pulling him with her back around the corner was because there was a very angry looking basketball team rounding the hall.

Unfortunately, Dean isn't exactly the easiest guy to pull. And it really only took a scintilla of a second for the pack… herd, flock, of steaming jocks to catch notice. And what a scary jock flock it was. Not unlike the angry stick-figures with exploding heads and smoke pouring from their ears in those Saturday morning cartoons she used to watch as a kid. Before Lorelai started a Cold War against the cable company, anyway. The boycott hadn't been too successful to say the least. And now not only had they lost all hope for 15 rebate, but half of their channels had been mercilessly hacked out, too.

"Hey!" The guy in the very front of the blood-thirsty jock flock yelled, grabbing a handful of Dean's sweater and unceremoniously slamming him against the lockers, "You! I'll bet it was you!"

Had been on television and not actually happening, Rory would've laughed at the fact the mad basketball player was roughly 10 inches shorter than Dean. But unfortunately, this was in fact actually happening and not another episode of the Wonder Years.

Dean's eyes flickered to the side, questioning cautiously, "Me…?"

It must have been the wrong answer. Because the guy suddenly, or not so suddenly, punched him painfully across the face

This didn't settle too well with Rory, who had seen the West Side Story one too many times, so undoubtedly she chose this moment to interject, "He didn't do anything," Eight pairs of eyes settled on her, "I mean, I realize you're no Doogie House and the sole purpose of your 20/20 attendance is to dribble and throw orange balls around the gym, but use your head. If we did commit whatever horrible crime your referring to, don't you think we would be hiding and not strolling around like window shoppers on Lazy Sunday? And violence is not the solution, Adam—oh, and as for the rest of you, it really wouldn't hurt to use your head once in a while hm? Instead of standing by while my acquaintance Dean here gets a slaughtering, use the newly acquired as of the 1740s freedom of speech and do something! Did we learn nothing from Lord of War?"

She wasn't exactly sure they got what she was saying. The majority of the team seemed to be checking out something other than her speech. Rory may not have much experience in the boy department but she'd watched Alfie enough times to know when she's being ogled.

The frontman stepped up, eyeing her in a way that would've probably made Freda Alder smack him with a shovel and burn him on a steak, "So you know my name, huh?"

She shot him an incredulous glare, half out of the awe that anyone could be this dim-witted, and half because she like her personal space. Which was being very much violated at the moment, "It's printed on your shirt."

Somehow he took that as a sign to commence hitting on her.

Making a mental note to stock up on pepper-spray, Rory opened her mouth to inform Adam that her thigh was not a rest stop to put his hand on it's journey up to her ass and MVP trophies won't buy him out of sexual assault. Dean beat her to it.

He gaped at him, "What do you think you're you doing?"

Adam made no move to remove his hand, "What does it look like I'm doing?"

Pushing Adams' hand off her thigh, Rory made a disgusted sound in the back of her throat. Similar to the noise one would make when they were forced to climb through a dumpster to seek out a sweater their mother had worn and accidentally thrown out after using it as a heat-absorbent when the toaster caught fire and almost burned the entire kitchen into a large lump of Febreze-scented charcoal. And she should know, having witnessed it firsthand. "Look Howard Stern, you may not be familiar with a term called sexual harassment, but—

"Leave us alone," Dean warned, cutting Rory off in the midst of her female empowerment speech.

"Why don't you?" The hand was back.

What are we, in kindergarten? Rory wanted to scream. She wanted to do more than that, actually. Just so he would stop feeling so damn obligated to feel her up, she wanted to duct tape his hands together. Like what Michel did do that guest that tried to steal one of the uncomplimentary bathrobes from the Inn. But there wasn't any tape within her line of vision, so she just settled for pushing his hand away.

Dean looked very, very angry. The throbbing purple vein on his forehead confirmed this, "You can't make me."

"Is that so?" Adam had turned his attention, thank god, to him now, "And what are you going to do about it? You already superglued our basketballs to the ceiling, you going to freezer-pack our jerseys next? We have a game tonight, man!"

Rory stared at him, bewildered. She really didn't think she'd ever even touched a basketball in her life, let alone superglue them to the ceiling. She could come up with only one plausible explanation for this: Jess. Jess, who she was at the very moment feeling an overwhelming sense of homicide towards, "Wait a second Adam, I don't think--

"We didn't do it!" Dean interrupted, "I haven't touched superglue since yesterday when the shelves on Aisle 5 were empty! And I had to restock them because I'm the bagboy. At Doose's. You go there, I'm sure. How would you like 30 off on baked goods if you don't disfigure our faces? No? 40? 45? Okay fine, but I'm drawing the line at 55."

Considering Adam still looked like Jack Nicholson at a Lakers Game, Rory concluded he probably didn't like baked goods too much. Or at all, for that matter. In fact, he probably despised them. That must be why he'd decided to lock the two into the janitor's closet. But at least he didn't disfigure their faces.

"Does this mean I won't be making the team this year?" Dean questioned, seconds before he was thrown into the Clorox infested house (or closet) of brooms.

Adam replied by slamming the door in their faces. Thus leaving them to rot in a foreign world of darkness, Clorox, brooms, and… Jess?

"You know, it should would does hurt when people are stepping on my foot. So I kindly ask you now to move your fucking shoe off my fucking toe, please and thank you."

Rory squinted into the darkness, "Jess?"

"No, it's the easter bunny."

Ah, the sarcasm. It was Jess, all right. Great, now not only was she stuck in a broom closet the size of a milk carton, but it came with two idiots to boot. Just great.

"Sorry. The sudden increase in speech and the fact we're enveloped in complete and utter blackness must have thrown me off," she responded dryly, silently shaking her fist at the cruelty of the greater powers, who were probably up beyond the great golden gates laughing their asses off this very moment.

"Whatever. Please tell me I'm dreaming and not actually locked in a tiny compacted space with the jolly green giant inches away from my face."

"Sorry to disappoint," Rory grumbled in a fashion one who has just discovered she'd been locked in a closet her arch nemesis would.

Dean, idiot #2 and the jolly green giant himself, was also less than overjoyed and expressed this compassion by glaring lasers towards Jess' direction. Or what he thought was Jess' direction. It was kind of hard to tell considering he couldn't see a damn thing.

"So Jess," Rory began, "We happen to be in here because Adam seems to think we're responsible for super-gluing his basketballs to the ceiling. Thank you for that, by the way."

"I'll tell Chuck you said that."

"Where is the bugger, anyways?"

"Last time I heard, he was crawling out the bathroom window. And as you see, I'm in crutches. So he escapes, jocks see me, I insult them, they get mad, I smack them with my crutches, they get mad, and somewhere along there they toss me in here."

"How tragic," Rory replied not so tragically, reaching for the doorknob. The locked doorknob, as she had just discovered.

"Yeah that was my initial reaction too. And as you can see, the damn custodian doesn't know how to install a lock. How hard is it really? You lock it from the inside, you try and open it from the outside only to fail miserably and be left out in the cold while your science teacher's inside screwing the principal. Or maybe that's a good thing. I wouldn't know."

Rory held back a groan, all the while marveling at what the world has come to, "Remind me to buy the custodian some common sense."

"And while you're at it, a brain would be good too."

Dean spoke up, "For him or you?"

"Oh that killed me."

Rory shook her head in vain seeing there was no way neither boy could see two inches in front of their face, "Will Paris and Shannon drop the lipstick and step away from the car?"

"Only if I get to be Shannon."

Dean growled, "Shut up Jess."

"Oh that's okay Paris, I'm sure nobody saw your sex tape. Just ignore the fact it was leaked across worldwide porn sites visited hourly by acne infested nerds who jack off twice a day."

"You know what—

"Whoa, whoa," Rory cut in quickly. Bloodshed in the supply closet wasn't something she wanted to get into. She jiggled the lock, "Jess don't you know how to break into these things?"

"Yes. But that usually comes with the territory of being able to see at least the end of my nose."

Dean scoffed, "You wouldn't have that problem if I break it for you."

"Hey beanpole, how would you like to have a broom shoved up your ass?"

"It's pitch-black in here, I'll bet you can't even find—OW!"

"Hey! What did I say about that lipstick, Shannon?" Rory demanded, reaching her arms out and coming into contact with several indescribable what she hoped were janitorial items before finally stealing away the broom, "Now would be the perfect time to recall that zero tolerance speech we were all introduced and accustomed to in second grade, hm?"

Jess snatched it back, "Thank you for that helpful insight, Gandhi. But unfortunately this is 21st century America, where filthy rich football players get away with murder, 10 year olds are running around with cell phones, and you know that thing around our atmosphere that keeps us all from getting fried? Yeah, well there's a hole in that."

"The only reason why there's a hole in the ozone layer in the first place is because people like you can't keep their hands off the excessive hair products," she shot back, grabbing away the broom again, this time stashing it against the wall.

"Not excessive," Jess insisted, "Compared to Dolly Parton, I'm nothing."

"Jess, you could combine everyone in the world's hairspray and compare it to Dolly Parton's, it'd still be nothing."

"Yeah," Dean chimed in.

Jess scoffed, "Oh shuddup bagboy, your hair needs to be hacked off with a weed-whacker."

That remark was met by a growl, "Speak for yourself, Elvis."

The three of them went on arguing for several hours straight. Or at least until Jess had finally located the broom and knocked Dean unconscious across the head with it. But by then it was well into evening, and the toxicating scent of Clorox was finally taking a toll on the two surviving teenagers, soon lulling them into a deep involuntary sleep.

So in the end, the janitor was the one who found our very own breakfast club sleeping amongst the brooms. The basketball team lost their game, but seeing they'd been losing for the past 37 years, that came as no surprise. The opposing team was, however, quite taken with the basketballs stuck to the ceiling (courtesy of Chuck Presby) thus sparking a hot new trend amongst the homecourts. From then on every gym within a 5000 mile radius to Stars Hallow High had basketballs hanging off the ceiling tiles.

And not too long after, Jess' foot had magically gotten better. But only after Luke caught him sprinting away (crutchless) screaming about bleeding eyeballs the day Taylor forgot to wear pants. So alas, Jess was then forced to attend gym class again—but that didn't mean he went.

It was also soon discovered that Dean was also developing quite the crush on Rory, god help her. She was flattered at first. But that all changed when she spotted him hiding amongst her dead rosebushes.

Lorelai had found the entire gimmick in the janitor's closet rather amusing. Thereby forgetting to punish Rory for not returning home in time for the tribute to Tom Cruise pre-Katie movie marathon.

Chuck was still Chuck. A pretentious asshole majoring in Stupid 101.

In fact, to the onlooking eye, it could be said that things were getting rather dull around Stars Hallow. But that was all about to change.


	6. Chapter 6

Fran died. This simple fact triggered more controversy than one might imagine.

"I…I can't believe it…" Lorelai sniffed, turning around to wipe her nose guiltlessly on her daughters' sweatshirt, "Poor Fran… she died so lonely. And old. All she had were her little cakes and frosting tops…" at that point her voice broke, but no, not even that could stop Lorelai Gilmore from sobbing hysterically in the crux of a Sunday afternoon church service.

Rory soon found herself left to singlehandedly fend off several annoyed glares their direction as she mentally scolded her temporarily short-sighted brain for not sticking a paper bag over her head to prevent angry churchgoers from throwing expired pastry dishes at her the next time she's in public.

Enter stage right: A flustered Luke with a not-any-less flustered Jess in tow.

"This is the last time I'm going to say this with a level, fastened head," he sat a disgruntled Jess beside an even more disgruntled Rory, who started to get up and move but failed to do so when a pastry indeed went flying at her head. Luke continued shake his finger in a way that even Auntie Em would be proud, "You steal from the donation jar, you go to church. You steal from the tip jar, you go to church. You take cash from my wallet, I run you into the ground with a Mac truck. And then you will go to church, do I make myself clear?"

Lorelai immediately perked up at the sound of her Good Samaritan, "Yes sir, Coach Boone."

Scowl, "Lorelai I can't teach this kid morals with you making cracks about a football movie behind my back."

"Oh no, I'm right in front of your face, Coach," to prove her point, she whacked him across the nose, "See? Hey Rory! I just hit Luke on the nose!"

That was not the best thing to say in a church considering there was a woman sitting a couple feet from them wishing the lot of them to hell.

Rory shifted disgracefully in her seat as the man sitting in front of her turned around to shoot daggers her direction. It was quite disturbing, she half expected fireballs to come blaring through his eye sockets.

But apparently no fireballs could match up to Jess' shriveling glare and, "Hey, either take a picture or go jack off to Lolita if you're so interested in little girls in Sunday skirts."

Lorelai, now having surpassed her temporary phase of 'haha-call-Luke-names' had once again resorted to tears and was in fact, in the very midst of sticking her head in her befuddled Good Samaritan's jacket sobbing with ever ounce of her steadfast willpower.

Luke could very well feel his face contorting into a scowl as the distressed woman continued her tirade of blubbering loudly into the only tux he owned. Luke had always been rather anti-social. At an early age, he would be caught rolling out windows and hiding under tables at Tupperware parties. He and Jess had that in common. It was generic, probably.

And when it came to life, he found that scowling 24/7 tended to make him less approachable. Thus, the infamous Luke face was born. I'm sure you've seen it time to time, your father had the Luke face on when he found out about the flavored contraptions you keep stuffed in your purse—you know, for just in case.

And so far, much to his content, the Luke face served Luke's with plenty of days dwelling alone upstairs in his apartment. Well, alone plus a crying screaming nephew he affectionately (though it has been hard to tell at times) referred to as 'the damn thing' in it's adolescent years. Par say, "The damn thing won't stop crying!' or "I gotta get the damn thing to the hospital, I don't care what Lorelai says, refrigerator magnets don't belong in the digestive system."

Speaking of which…

Ah, Lorelai Gilmore. A rare exception in Luke's anti-anything-perky formula. The two made an unlikely head-scratching pair of friends. And Luke's gruff behavior often fascinated her beyond means.

Her sobbing at this point, had subsided, "Hey Luke," she said, dropping her voice to a whisper, "Do you like Tupperware parties?"

"No, not at all," he drawled.

"Oh. Good news, I'm not having a Tupperware party."

"Hurray for upscale society, then."

"Okay. I'll see you at five. Bring those sandwich things you made the other day with those toothpicks sticking out of the top."

"All r—wait, what? What happened to--"

He never got to finish that thought because Jess had chosen that particular moment to bash the previously mentioned man who needed to "jack off to Lolita" sitting in front of them across the face.

OOOOOOOOOOOO

"Mom, when normal people host funeral parties, they generally don't include balloons that say, 'Congratulations, it's a girl!'"

Obviously not caring much for the difference between a baby shower and a deathbed, Lorelai brushed off the statement off disinterestedly, "Shush daughter, don't disturb me when I'm microwaving kabobs."

Oh yes, it was unanimous. Fran was going to haunt them forever. "Do you realize that very few requiem services serve cocktails on Spice Girls collectible plates? If we wake up the next day with knifes hanging over our beds and the words 'Fran was here' scrawled over our headboards in virgin blood, I will not hesitate to point fingers."

Lorelai's head popped up from her reclined position on the floor, "Sweetie, do you like having a house?"

"Yes I am rather fond of it."

"Well you can only continue living in a house as long as your dear precious mommy doesn't burn it down with her severe lack of culinary art skills. Now leave her in peace so she could decipher the usages of all these funny little buttons on this device we call the microwave," she glanced briefly toward the sound of yammering voices in the front yard, "Hey I know, you could go open the door so our guests won't have to stand around on the porch with their batches of food wondering if they have the right house anymore."

Rory obliged. Despite the fact leaving her mother alone with a domestic device was usually a, pardon the pun, recipe for disaster.

"I thought this was a funeral," Clara quipped once inside, staring blankly at the baby balloons.

"Oh it is a funeral," Luke replied relentlessly, he pointed to the casket on the left, "See that thing right there? That's where they put the dead person."

Eyes wide, her head turned towards the burly diner owner in arrested confusion, "But my mommy said Fran was in heaven."

"Heaven don't exist, kid. I think the whole Jehovah's Witness thing proves that."

"What about God?"

"Man created God. He's a figment of our pathetic imagination. Toaster not working? Let's blame God! The economy is collapsing? God's fault! Kids from third world countries stabbed to death by tyrant kings? God! See? It works quite well."

Any shred of Clara's lasting innocence was saved thanks to the fact Rory had rushed over to steer her away, "What he meant to say was actually 'honk twice if you love Jesus.' He's just kind of strange sometimes. I uh…Clara I think you'd better go play with the other little children before Luke here causes you to go through years of painful mental therapy in the future," she turned back to the latter, "Hey Luke, where's Jess?"

"I'd rather not know," Stepping easily over a very concentrated Lorelai sitting hunched over her instructions manual, Luke dropped the plate of colorful sandwiches with a clatter, "Here we go, I had to rush through the morning orders, which led eventually to my shoe getting caught and ripped from the seams into a batch of pancake batter but I did manage to make the eighty eight sandwiches you wanted."

Eighty eight. There were less white keys on a piano.

"Luke," Rory began, "We only really needed about thirty. Forty at most."

Two pairs of accusing eyes simultaneously turned to stare pointedly at the lady and the microwave.

"Have you seen our refrigerator?" was Lorelai's defense, "There's more food in a malnourished tribe on Timbuktu."

"What are you doing?" Forget Timbuktu, his attention was focused on the microwave now, "Is that the main frequency wire? Did you take out the frequency wire?" Aha, so that's what it was. "What are you trying to do, electrocute yourself? Give yourself a nice, Don King light bulb fueled hair-do?"

"Long live the king!" Lorelai avowed rather giddily, pointing a spark inducing frequency wire into the air. An action that obviously couldn't have been too smart considered it made Luke lunge 3 feet across the floor to wrestle the fatal wire from her grasp.

Deciding it would be more or less safe enough to leave her mother in the watchful hands of a guy who owned more tools than Tim Taylor himself, Rory found herself wandering about a good crowd of mournful, Cheese-Puff munching Fran-lovers before finally deciding it'd be best to retreat into her room and spend the rest of her days building poor Fran a shrine for the sad way this funeral was turning out. And maybe while she was at it, write a letter to the government explaining way she wouldn't want her mother ever, ever catering or associating in anyway with her burial ceremony if she died pre-maturely.

However, her plans were wretched into a screeching halt once discovering Jess sprawled nonchalantly across her bed, a good way through her beloved Franny and Zooey, "Why hello Jess, shock bumping into you here."

"Oh yeah. Big shock," he replied backhandedly, stealing the half-eaten sandwich she'd previously been chewing on.

"Well I'm glad to know the cootie-epitome has worn off at least," she muttered, watching him polish off the rest of her lovely sandwich. Her gaze wandered over to her curiously unlatched window, "So I take it you're pulling an Abbe Faria?"

"Who, me? Never."

"Hm," a beat, "Window opens the other way."

He was up and out before she so much as say, 'hey you stole my book', casting her a brief glance and, "Leave your window open tonight."

The colorful imagery of Jess crawling in to strangle her in her sleep flashed briefly through her mind before she gathered enough kudos to ask, "…Why?"

"I'm still hungry."

He was rewarded with a day old peanut butter sandwich she'd stashed under her bed in case of natural disaster thrown at his head.

OOO

Whether it was because of Lorelai's atrocious hosting skills or her frozen kabobs, Rory didn't know. All that she could figure out was she came out of her short trip to Doose's for Red Vines and ended up arriving home at a nearly empty house. A bewildering contrary to the fact the place had just been bustling with bored funeral-goers half an hour before.

And poking her head subtly into the kitchen, Rory was met with the sight of Luke trying his very best to keep Lorelai (and himself for that matter) alive while trying to fix the disintegrated microwave.

"So you take this wire and stick it into the cable marker… you got that?"

Lorelai nodded delightfully, "Stick the lime in the coconut, got it Harry Nilsson."

"All right then moving on…"

She somehow doubted Luke would live to see morning. But at least they had a casket sitting conveniently right there in their living room if indeed, a freak-fire were to occur.

But never mind that. With a content sigh, Rory plopped back onto her bed, gleefully apprehending the upcoming hours of color-coding her sock drawer, a leisure pursuit she'd been waiting to execute all week.

Unfortunately the tap on her window begged to differ, and against her better judgment, Rory swung it open. Finding herself face to face with Jess. Who was bleeding in six different places. Again.

He greeted her with the ever so charming, "I thought you said you'd leave the window open."

"Yes," was her dry reply, "but that was before I wasted on you my only weapon against starvation if a snowstorm were to isolate me from the rest of rational society."

"You really think half a peanut butter sandwich would've saved you from malnutrition?"

"Hm, now that you mention it, the entire concept of salvation through the separation of mankind does seem rather skeptical," she reached towards the latch, "I should start now then. Get some practice in. Good night Jess--

"Hey hey hey…" his arm was now unfortunately blocking her hand from it's original holy attempt of slamming the window shut, "I'm sorry. I won't ever question your survival tactics again. Will you let me in now?"

"You should really consider raiding the pharmacy as opposed to those porcelain unicorn stores you're so fond of. Then you wouldn't have to spend your time rolling in and out of my backbreakingly inaccessible windows."

"And miss our lovely tirade in which you glue on my limbs in a process that causes me to scream out in nonsensical pain? No way."

Guess color-coordinating her sock drawer would just have to wait, "Climb in. I'll get the adhesive tape."


	7. Chapter 7

"Remind me again why I'm holding a poptart to my eye?" Jess grumbled, indeed holding a frozen pop-tart to his eye.

Rory was about ready to duct tape his mouth to the table just so he could stop his ungrateful yammering, "Because we're out of steaks."

"And ice bags, for that matter."

"Not all of us are blessed with the privilege of having sacks of frozen water at arm's reach. Now shut up so I could glue your ear back onto your head in peace."

He managed to hold it in for an impressive twenty seconds before "Last time I checked, the bandaid isn't supposed to be floating around in the blood."

"It's not my fault you bleed like a stuck pig."

And in a way only a stuck pig respond with, "It's not my fault your band-aid looks like something someone could easily fit up their ass."

"Oh yeah? Wanna try?"

"If you would just get bigger band-aids--"

"If you would just get yourself a mute button…"

And in a flutter of leather and bleached blond hair went Billy Idol…"Shoot. Bandaid fell off. Hey, get me another one will you?"

Who was he kidding? "Just so I could listen to you complain about my lack of appropriate medical supplies? Thanks, but no thanks."

He paused to stare at her incredulously, "I'm bleeding."

"You should have thought of that before you decided to abuse my treasured Billy Idol band-aid."

"Good. I can't sit through 'Mony, Mony' once without clawing my ears out."

"Hm. I'll keep that in mind if I ever decide to blindfold and drag you to Billy's unplugged concert."

"Billy-lover."

"Elvis worshiper."

She'd eventually gotten him another band aid, that of which she'd smoothed over his forehead in tender loving care, but not before accidentally jabbing him with the blunt side of her scissors. Jess remained eerily quiet throughout the entire tirade. Half because Rory had moved her face in close proximity with his, and half because he was suspecting she was really getting serious about duct-taping his mouth shut, "Your hair looks good like that."

His statement was met by a glare, whereas she had obviously misinterpreted his words for sarcasm, "Shuddup. Just because I refuse to spend 23 hours in the bathroom admiring my reflection and running gelled gunk through my head does not mean--."

"I was being sincere," he cut in, exasperated with her lack of faith on his part

The shock was evident, seeing as she was staring at him as if he had sprouted twenty heads off his neck. There was really only one plausible explanation for this, "Are you drunk?"

Scowl, "Forget it. Your hair's a mess, and I said nothing."

"You said nothing?"

"Nothing."

"Watch that nose, Pinnochio."

"You know," he said, expertly maneuvering himself about the mishap, "I have a theory on that, I say Disney thwarted the entire concept of the nose thing. Personally, I think it was a completely different body part that started growing when he lied because face it, as stupid as it seems, having your nose stretch isn't nearly as embarrassing as having your groin expand 5 times in under 10 seconds."

She winced reflectively at his crude statement, "Gee thank you for that. There goes another Disney movie I won't ever be able to watch again."

He still owed her for the time he pointed out The Little Mermaid may as well had been soft core porn. And that was in 2nd grade. Welcome to the age of corruption.

"So," she started slowly, "Are you going to tell me who this you've been reenacting Scarface with?"

A bitter chuckle escaped abruptly through his lips as she shot him a questioning glance, "It's less Scarface, more Boston Massacre."

Unfortunately, her question would remain unanswered due to the fact their enlightening conversation was cut short by the blunt shriek of Jess' beeper. A sign that couldn't have been too great considering is triggered a hasty, "Oh (insert swear word here)" from the bleeding stuck pig lying on her bed.

"Yes I know," she supplied in response to his excessive cursing, "Technology can be very frustrating. Damn whoever slaughtered the constant society."

Jess didn't seem to hear her, seeing as he had dropped the frozen pop-tart and was well on his way towards her window, an expedition that was halted abruptly when a confused and wildly affronted Rory choose to plant herself in his way, "Whoa there pigeonfoot, where do you think you're going?"

"Do you have a car?"

If there was any doubt in her mind that Jess was the most afdhadbflbafdsf being on the face of the earth, this overrode it.

The heads have sprouted again, "What?"

"Do. You. Have. A. Car."

"Well that's what the hunk of shiny metal parked in the driveway goes by."

"Great. I'll return it to tomorrow morning."

She failed to stifle the scoff protruding from her throat, "Ha… Oh wait, sorry. You seriously think I'll let you parade around in the only form of transportation I own?"

"Right. Because being seen in your lovely coated-with-bugs-on-the-windshield motor vehicle is the sole purpose of my existence."

Her mouth dropped, she could've taken the time to point out his own car was lying splitside in the middle of a junkyard ready to be crushed and distributed as aluminum soda cans for the rest of dehydrated American, but she chose to settle for an irked, "Excuse me but my windshield is perfectly spotless."

"Oh, well the sixty different species of fruit-flies splattered upon it beg to differ," Jess was obviously reaching the end of his short-lived patience as confirmed by the fact he was now running his fingers through his heavily gelled Elvis personating hair in agog agitation, "Are you giving me the keys or not?"

"After that enlightening statement about my beautiful windshield?"

"I'm sorry. Your windshield is spotless. The dead bugs stuck on it are merely figments of space and time glued together to make it seem like an immobile piece of crap. Forgive me."

"Well when you put it that way…" she uttered sarcastically, pausing wittingly for a moment before questioning, "Where are you going?"

"This is ridiculous…"

"Supermarket, Grand Canyon, outer space? Give me a hint here."

He sighed impatiently, and, as Rory noted with self-congratulatory, with an undertone of defeat, "A couple towns away. There's an… argh. It's a party."

The mere image of Jess interacting with actual people was enough hilarity to keep Rory happy for the rest of her living breathing thinking years, "A party? You?"

"Believe it or not I'm not going there to relive Saturday Night Fever," he replied dryly, not oblivious at all to the fact she was enjoying his discomfort a tad too much, "So are you giving me the keys or not?"

Despite her inner-Jeremy Cricket shrieking 'NO! NO! NO!', Rory reluctantly removed the keys from her bag. Well, rest in peace Jeremy. She wasn't that stupid, "I'm driving."

It was now her turn now to sprout twenty heads, Jess squinted at her in not exactly the most attractive way, "What?"

"If you think I'm going to let you of all people drive around in my precious greased lightning, you need a new brain. No wait actually you need a new brain anyways. So you'd need a new brain in addition to your new brain."

"That makes complete sense," was his cantankerous response as he set to work on pushing open her window, "So princess, should you roll out the holy breach in the wall first or should I?"

OOOOO

"I thought you said you knew how to drive," Jess grumbled, accelerating the vehicle in a way that caused Rory to bump her head on the ceiling despite the constricted seatbelt holding her back. That of which was obviously not doing it's job considering the state of mind, so to speak, her commiserable head was in.

"I do. Just not very well," she stuck her hand above her scalp to avoid the impact sure to come from Jess' fast though more furious if anything driving. The guy was the epitome of road rage, "In fact the only reason I got my license was because I think my mother offered the instructor a lap dance. Whether or not he could her up on that I'm not sure, I had my ears covered at that point." She furrowed her eyebrows, having just brought up a belated subject, "Jess?"

"If you tell me there's gremlins poking out from the side of the road one more time I swear to god…"

Her gaze drifted uneasily to the unfamiliar terrain outside the glass pane, the true extent of the potential apostasy on her part of this situation settling in as she shifted apprehensively in her seat, "I think I should've told my mom first."

"You left a post it note. And a letter explaining the post it note. And another post it note in the bathroom explaining the letter explaining the post it note. Believe it or not, I think she'd have gotten the message."

"Then I should've asked for permission." Jess shrugged at that, remaining unfazed despite the sound of her head hitting the bug- glutted window in contrition, "Ugh! I'm a bad daughter."

"No, just sixteen," he replied offhandedly, the majority of his attention focused on the sluggish car in front of them, "If anything, Lorelai should be grateful she conceived a kid who would go so far as to develop a conscience in this time of— Jesus Christ can that stupid car go any slower?"

Rory barely raised her head from its seluded spot on the window, "We had a system. Of all my teenybopper years I've never felt any urge to send the red flags of rebellion off and in this fairly small amount of time back from Hartford, I've managed to shatter that system and possibly massacre any overbearing trust my mother has or will ever have in me," she turned abruptly to a distracted Jess, who was preoccupied with his timely task of urging the car in front of them to burst into flame, "Good god, we'll never be able to watch Thirteen ever again without an undertone of awkward resentment."

"Rory. Shut up."

"But I—

"For pete's sake, you're sixteen. You're bound to give in to some old prepubescent heresy sometime," and as quick as it came, his attention had been averted, "For the love of god!" And there goes Jess' head, popping out the window, "The speed limit says fifty-five, grandpa!"

Reminding herself to ask Jess about any history of medical illness, Rory grabbed hold of his shirt and managed to yank him back in before the Jess-dubbed 'grandpa' could sue for hoodlumism, "Whoa there Jack Nicholson, anger management says happy hour is from four to six."

"Shame. I need my cocktails," Jess grumbled half-heartedly, turning abruptly into a street corner.

And alas, Rorys' inferior reflexes failed to protect her skull from another round of assault through the roof of the car, "Ah! Okay well then you may want to lay off the cocktails and settle for some nice aroma back therapy."

He didn't seem to hear. Or it wasn't a long shot that he might've just ignored her, "We're here."

She stared openly at the slightly Adam's Family-esque otherwise homely looking house. Half expecting eerie silhouettes of delirious party goers bounding about the windows that never appeared, "Awfully quiet for a party."

"Did I say party?"

Agh. Her gaze swiveled accusingly towards his direction, "Yes."

"Oh. I lied."

She was surprisingly not surprised, "Okay," a beat, "Uh, Jess? Exactly how long are we staying?"

"Just a minute or two. I just have some business to take care of."

"Oh. Well then you still owe me gas money," still holding her throbbing head, she'd pushed open the door and was in the midst of sliding out when it became evident that a restraining order by the name of Jess had an iron grip on her arm and was in the process of pulling her back in a way that caused her to yet again whack her head on the ceiling, "Ow! Jeez, what are you doing?"

"You're staying in the car."

Somebody here obviously hadn't been acquainted with a little term called free will, "Excuse me?"

"I don't want to spend my Monday mornings digging up your pretty little head."

"Yeah well, I'd taken up baton twirling in the 1st grade. I think I could manage a couple thugs, Jess Mariano," she was getting rather annoyed at this point. This wasn't 1748. Sexism had already taken it's drastic nosedive and when a guy told you to stay in a car, you sure as hell weren't going to listen.

Jess was well aware of this now. The fact he had fallen forward to smack his head on the dashboard repeatedly confirmed this.

As an attempt to salvage the rest of his remaining brain cells, Rory managed to grab hold of his shirt and halt him from his journey to deficiency, "You're going to set off the airbag."

"I'm going to need you to do something for me," was his muffled reply.

Aha. Apparently she was a little late in her rescue for his expedition to brain damage, "What?"

His head popped up to eye her warily, "I need you to do something for me."

The hold on his shirt was released, "Okay, forget the airbag. You can continue hitting your head now."

Realization seemed to strike him a little late. Probably because of the severe loss of brain cells banging your head against the dashboard results to, "Oh jeez-- it's not dirty. If that's what you're thinking."

"I'm not thinking anything," she insisted profusely, "Because I won't be doing anything."

"Just--" his failure to form a coherent sentence had triggered him to bang (dirty) his head once more against the dashboard, "Ugh. Look, would it help if I explained a few things?"

She'd actually been thinking more along the lines of attacking him with pepper spray, but that worked too.

"There's a teacher that lives here. He and I have some unresolved issues."

Not following entirely, "… Unresolved?"

"Unresolved," he confirmed.

At least she knew now who the crown for king of vagueness went to. "You're going to have to do better than that."

"It's not that big of a deal. It's… okay. I'll let you get out of the car if you just—

"You'll _let_ me get out of the car?" Well it was unanimous. Feminism was dead as a doornail, "I could very much get out of a car without your permission, King Henry, because I realize opening a door and sticking your legs out is so arduous of a task."

Averting his desperate grab for her sweater, she very much proved not only that she was completely capable of removing herself from a car, but was quite impulsive when she was angry.

Jess trailed after her, finally succeeding in snagging hold of her long enough to say, "For god's sake will you listen to me before you go completely postal and shoot everyone in the mailroom?"

"That depends. Does everyone include you?"

"Agh," The blend of frustration and stress was clearly not a good sentiment for Jess, who after realizing he no longer had the dash-board at heads' reach, proceeded to use Rory's shoulder as a replacement.

She stopped him. She did more than that actually, with a tight grip on his shoulders she proceeded to shake the living daylights out of him, "Snap out of it! At this rate, brain tumor can't be far behind," loosening her grip, Rory cast a pointed glance at the house, "But before then, could you please maybe tell me why we're expediting your teacher's house?"

His voice was nearly incoherent due to the fact he was somehow obliged to bury his face in her shoulder, but the word, "No." really isn't that hard to catch.

Annoyance, "Tell me or I'll ring the doorbell."

Muffled, "He's not home."

"So what are we doing here? Were you going to bust all his windows, streak around his living room flinging toilet paper, and write 'I am Andy Dufresne, this is my redemption' on all the walls?"

His head lifted off her shoulder, "He has my tape."

"Can't that wait till he's actually home?"

"Nope," he gestured towards the bushes. The possibly spider ridden bushes, "Look, you don't have to stay in the car. Just sit there and wait for me, okay?"

This piqued her very much, but the idea of being stuffed facefirst into her own car piqued her even more. Plus she figured she could get back at Jess by sneaking a spider down his shirt later, "Fine."

"Unless you want to stay in the car."

"Oh no. Bushes are great," ignoring the spiky branches poking at her legs and the invisible bugs creeping across her neck, of course.

He started towards the house, before his overwhelming distrust at the situation finally settled and he turned around to say, "So you're just going to sit there, right?"

"Oh no, I might just let myself breath once in a while. Just for the sake of oxygen." And staying alive.

"Listen, if you see anyone coming, headlights pulling into the driveway, throw a rock at that window right there. I might need a precaution."

"Just call me Thomas Beckett," was her response, more concerned with brushing off the humungous looking arachnid crawling up her arm than with the truthliness of her words. She probably should've put more thought into that statement. Because as Jess picked and disappeared into the back door, a car had indeed pulled into the driveway. And there he was, Jess' teacher, who currently still preoccupied sitting inside his vehicle mouthing the words to 'I Wanna be Sedated.'

It was around that moment when Rory realized there was a slight problem, being that she really wasn't Thomas Beckett and her aiming was a devastating negative zero. Her futile attempt for the latter had, in fact, ended up missing by a good 10 yards, "Oh jeez," she muttered, watching the man walk up the porch, "Jess, you might be in trouble here."


	8. Chapter 8

Thankfully, there is a cool new thing called probability. And before long, it occurred to Rory that throwing 50 rocks all at once had more of a chance to hit the window than one at a time. Alas, this solution triggered her to launch an entire spate of pebbles to go flying at the window. The glass window.

When you throw an army of gravel at a glass window, guess what happens?

Fortunately, if there's one thing that could be counted on, it's Rory's atrocious ability to aim. Thus, a grand total of zero rocks managed to make contact with the glass pane, thereby concluding that she would probably have to find an entirely different way to inform Jess of their situation at hand. Preferably smoke signals, but Rory was no caveman and already knew from past experiences she lacked the talent to start a fire (a trait she'd most likely inherited from her mother) without lighting her clothes and half the campsite with it in the process.

She settled for making an attempt to scale the giant tree of some kind that eventually led up to the roof. Key word here being 'attempt,' and it really didn't take long till she realized she was severely lacking in the tree-climbing department as well. The fact that the pathetic-looking branch she had decided to sit upon was making a hair-raising cracking noise very much confirmed that.

This couldn't be good. Cracking never led to anything good. Their toaster had made cracking noises just before it burst into flame and took half the counter along with it. Same thing happened with their laundry machine. And microwave. And television. And the guy who came to fix the television.

Now, she could add tree branch to the list. Though she did manage to utter a quick prayer before it entirely collapsed, igniting an ear-busting crash and little birdies to dance around her head singing 'Walk Like an Egyptian' which was ironic considering she couldn't walk, period, at the moment. It was unanimous. Cracking was bad.

What's more, by the time Mr. Jess' teachers' disgruntled, 'What the hell was that?' reached her ears, all feeling below the back was pretty much long gone.

"I hate you, Jess," she told the sky, before concentrating on the task of limping back into her little bush. Which proved to be very difficult mostly because the entire concept of limping usually came with the territory of being able to at least move your ass.

Ah, but no time for that. Jess' teacher had already reached the front door and—hey look, he was carrying a gun.

Jess' teacher has a gun.

Forget limping, she dived headfirst into the bushes. A worthy survival tactic that would've emerged successful if not for the fact branches tend to make a big rustly noise that in this case, could very much cost you your life.

"Damn raccoons," Mr. Jess' teacher-who-has-a-gun grumbled, starting towards the bush and, much to Rory's despair, fired about three shots straight into the branches.

It was around that time when it occurred to her that she was possibly about to die kneeling over in a bush. An ugly, bug-infested one at that. She wrinkled her brow in a sudden surge of annoyance. No, Rory Gilmore had spent too much time ignoring bushes (particularly the rosebushes her mother had planted and forgotten about in the summer of '98) to have her brain (shoulder, arm, chest…) blown off in the middle of one.

Her fingers enclosed almost sub-consciously around the gravel scattered along the ground, and was throwing the tiny pebbles straight Mr. Jess' teacher's face before she could even comprehend what she was doing.

Only about a quarter of the rocks actually hit the guy, but it was apparently enough to make him drop the gun and clutch his precious face screaming the words, "HOLY FUCK" at the top of his lungs.

Jess chose to make his appearance from behind the back door at that point. Calmly walking over to his antagonized teacher to whack him over the head with what else, but a tape recorder. Isn't life fun?

Not really, Rory thought, rightfully vexed seeing as she'd just been mistaken for a raccoon.

"He should be knocked out for a good five hours, at least," After experimentally kicking at the pavement (or more specifically, the teacher) Jess shifted his glance from the collapsed form to Rory, who was in the process of glaring daggers at his direction, "So… did he get you?"

Without a word, Rory proceeded to bombard a startled Jess with the spare rocks enclosed in her palm, the main target being his head.

"Hey!" his arms went up in self-defense, "Fuck… okay, I guess I deserved that," He paused for a moment to comment, "Wow, you really suck at aiming."

"Gee, you think?" She'd ran out of rocks, unfortunately, and had now settled for shoving him repeatedly on the shoulder at the appropriate times during her lament, "You idiot! You idiotic idiot! You idiotic idiot indebted to idiocy and… agh!" Aha, the rocks were back again.

"I…ow! Hey, you actually hit me with that one there. I thought I told you to stay in the bush."

"If I'd stayed in the bush, you would be mince meat right about now!"

"And you could've been mince meat right about now. Why the hell didn't you just sit still?"

"Because unlike the vertically challenged bimbos you're used to associating with, I have a brain. I see a big guy holding a gun using my bush as his point of destination, I throw about forty rocks at his head, okay?" Shoot. Out of rocks again. And damn it, she was getting rather emotional, as one should be after facing a life-death situation with the company of a couple spiders sitting in her hair. Already beginning to snivel faintly, she gave Jess' shoulder one last shove before starting towards the car in a mess of tears and whimpering.

Jess was not used to (or good at, for that matter) comforting a distressed female. Especially not one that despised him with the passion of a thousand fiery pits in hell and wanted to burn him to a stake whenever she caught sight of him. But he trailed after her nevertheless, "Rory—

…And she'd slammed the car door in his face.

"Come on, open the door," Jess tried, at his very best attempt to be civil.

"No."

"Jeez, Rory…"

"Go to hell." So much for civil.

With a sigh, he smacked his forehead against the windowpane, "Will you go out with me?"

This was met by a scoff, "What am I, stupid? You're an complete egghead if you think I'm falling for that one."

His jaw tightened, "I'm serious."

"I'm not opening this door, Jess."

"Why not?"

"I hate you."

"You love me."

"Try again."

"I love you."

"Excuse me for having a backbone. You're going to have to do better than that."

"I adore you. I cherish you. I'm John Cusack standing outside your window with a boom box." Shoot, that came out more sarcastic than intended.

She appeared not to have minded too much. On the contrary, maybe even, dare say, intrigued. Or at least she wasn't looking at him like she wanted to stick a fork through his face anymore, "Getting warmer."

Agh. This sucked beyond measurement. "You had me at hello."

He was being painfully insincere, yes. But it was amusing nevertheless. Someone here really did not want to walk home, Rory mused. The upperhand was a nice place to be, "Great. Now say 'You complete me.'"

There was a scowl fixed on his face, signaling the end of the line, "I have boundaries, thank you very much."

"You mean a wildly inflated male ego."

"I'm not quoting any more Jerry Maguire."

"Hey it's either Tom Cruise or Leonardo DiCaprio, mister."

He looked at her, "Go out with me."

She furrowed her eyebrows in confusion, "Which movie is that from?"

"Is that a yes?"

She squinted at him. Clearly, someone had lost their mind, "What?"

He stared back. Clearly, someone had lost their mind, "What? Will. You. Go. Out. With. Me. I'm not asking again."

"You've asked before?"

His forehead, once again, slammed the window in frustration, "Yes or no?"

She grew eerily quiet with speculation at that. For a moment, she wondered if Jess maybe had some medication he'd forgotten to take. Which would, for the most part, explain his even stranger than normal behavior this entire evening. "Okay," the word tasted funny in her mouth. Okay okay okay.

Rolling the window down, she plopped her arms over the edge and paused to point a menacing finger to his face, "But just for the record, I'm still mad at you and you're still walking home."

**(AN: Wasn't entirely sure how to end it. But yes, I am finally where I want to be. Things will begin to make sense in the next chapter, hopefully. Specifically the tape recorder and the late-night batterings.)**


	9. Chapter 9

She had to let him in eventually. Partially because it would be mighty hard to explain to Luke if Jess was found the next day hacked to pieces in a bush. But mostly it was due to that Rory Gilmore couldn't drive for beans.

However, this vital fact obviously meant nada to Jess, who ignored her indignant protests and reminiscence of the time she'd driven her mother's brand new Mercedes into their kitchen a mere 25 minutes subsequential to it's purchase

Taking no precaution in the safety of his own lifeline, Jess asserted disinterestedly, "It can't be that bad,"

Rory frowned, "I don't appreciate your sarcasm, Jess."

He wasn't entirely wrong though. It, being her ability to operate a moving vehicle, wasn't bad at all. It was abominable.

Four minutes following his careless assertion…

"You realize that we're going twenty miles an hour," Jess stated slowly, watching the arrow on the dashboard descend steadily down the array of numbers, "Now eighteen. Fifteen. Oh wait, progress! Twenty-two. I feel a congratulations is in order."

"Try hallmark, I'm busy," Rory dismissed, ignoring the urge to shoo him off with a wave of her hand. Instead, she chose to focus her fingers on the task of tightening her already-iron-grip on the steering wheel as her eyes fixed themselves intently at the stretch of black pavement extending beyond their line of vision.

"Well I guess that's going to have to be postponed anyway. We're back to eighteen," And after noting the fact that his companion's knuckles were in the process of turning purple, advised somewhat-helpfully, "You might want to go a little faster,"

"No thank you. Eighteen is plenty fast for me."

"…The speed limit's fifty."

Her grasp tightened, "Oh how nice. I would gladly twist my neck around to stare adoringly at the lovely, numbered yellow sign suspended on a brilliant metal stick but unfortunately, my life is at stake. Disruptions cannot be tolerated. That includes you."

"Twenty-one."

"Stop it!"

"Twenty-five. We're breaking a record here,"

"The only thing you'll be breaking is your noggin, after I swerve off course and we plunge to our deaths down a monstrous canyon--"

"Twenty-eight."

"—complete with giant falling rocks, Lost Ark style."

"Thirty." He obviously took amusement in her misery.

She fumed, "You know what? Forget the canyon. I'll save us the trouble and push you out right now."

"Oh no, back to twenty seven. Could I get a rain check on that?"

"Only because Driver's Manual says I'm supposed to keep both hands on the wheel."

"You actually read that thing?"

If she wasn't so preoccupied with the task before her, she would've turned around to stare incuriously at her companion, "…It's required."

"So?"

"And yes, as long as you're asking. I memorized the entire packet."

"Aha. That must be why you drive like a blind old bat."

"Bats are blind. You're being redundant."

"Well then I guess that makes us complements, those driver's manuals are out-dated. You're being trivial."

The statement perturbed her slightly, "I'm not trivial."

"Says the girl who makes references to The Great Train Robbery."

"Hey! That was an indubitably influential silent movie, they composed three remakes of that film."

"Oh yeah. One of which was made in 1904."

"At least I'm not conservational of inanimate objects. You've been clinging to that tape recorder since we left the house."

Her accusation was met with an abrupt cough, "What tape recorder?"

She furrowed her eyebrows, "The tape recorder you stole from your gun-tooting, murderous disciplinarian's house."

"Huh."

Good lord, he was perplexing. Further questioning on this matter failed to persist though, after the subject was redirected towards the frustrated car trailing their bumper.

OOOOOOOOO

Even as a tot, Lane had never been good with codifying sentences in times of unforeseen stupefaction. When you lived in a 20 square foot premises with a mother who considered sugar cookies implements of Satan, you liked your late night powdered donut binge well-planned to the point surpassing obsessive-compulsive tendencies. Fluky mishaps were inadmissible.

Receiving news that your best friend had reeled in her very own cuddlebuddy was not something Lane planned to hear until a good decade later. In her mind, Rory Gilmore was still the ten-year-old teenybopper fashioning a lovely poodle- do' (All thanks to Jess and Chuck's infamous gum expedition) sitting in the quiet circle condemning all boys to Never-Never Land with every once of her prepubescent brain-power.

Lane's eyeballs bulged to the size of golf balls. Inflated golf balls, if such a thing existed, "How did this… Ah!" climbing onto the chair, she slammed her palms onto the table as an attempt to formulate a worthy reply, "You've been—Gah!" her head dropped, "I can't speak."

"Maybe it's because you've got half a patty melt sticking out the side of your mouth," Rory supplied sympathetically.

This comment went unheard by Lane, who was still suspended in a state of shock, "You…" the patty melt dropped from her jaws, "Good lord. You've fished yourself a mate. A breadwinner. A Jess. Couldn't you have just settled for a nice GI Joe doll?"

"Oh yes. If I was six and still unwary of the fact plastic is bad for the digestive tract."

"It's just that Jess isn't the first name that comes to mind when I think spouse," this allegation of Lanes' was accompanied by another chunk of patty melt shoved in her chops, "I mean, really. Are you aware this means receiving gnomes and hubcaps for anniversary gifts? And all his biker buddies would probably send fried poultry and tires for the wedding. Rory, do you want chicken wings a-la' rubber served on your wedding?"

Ah. Rory was stupefied, and her jaw was failing to fasten, "Wedding?"

"Yes. No wait, scratch that. Elopement. The Cosa Nostra don't believe in weddings. And get acquainted with Mr. Goodyear, my friend. Because it's a household name in motorbuddy-land."

"I—

"And Pre-Nup is a must. May I recommend you ask for the car? Leave the rat-shack to him."

"… Okay, first off, we'd have to get married before you start planning the divorce, alright?"

"Unless you're a golddigger."

The party in question took evident offense into this appalling suggestion, "Hey! My name is Rory, not Anna Nicole Smith-- and in order to elope, my name would have to be Britney Spears. So until I start shaking my arse around in belly-shirts or appearing in Trimspa ads, you've got nothing to worry about."

"Nothing?"

"Zilch."

"Nothing?"

"Nada."

"…Nothing?"

"Good time for a new word?"

"Okay," Content for now, Lane chewed thoughtfully on her patty melt, "Hey, do you think Jess' teacher has a name?"

A name. A word or words by which an entity is designated and distinguished from others. Rory frowned, no, she was not aware of Jess' teacher's name. As far as she was concerned, he had a wicked shotgun holding the capability of blowing her precious head off—and that was enough identification by her, "No, I don't think he does. Should we just call him Mr. Bigs then or sum it up to a lost identity?"

"But what if he's tiny?"

"If you mean mass-wise, no, he's as Yeti as you can get without proceeding across American borders. But if you're referring to something dirty, then I want to know who you are and what you've done to my sweet Laney."

"Oh Laney? She's in there somewhere, though cast in somnolent torpor from reluctantly accompanying her respectably insano mother in her massive bible-indulging spurge without the help of energy packed Take 5 bars. The secret stash had been long-consumed by hour six," Lane replied dryly, following up this statement with a spoonful of cheese and cow shoved indignantly into her waiting chops.

"You poor thing."

"Yes well, access to the holy gates- and my own house for that matter, comes with a backbreaking price. What's nine hours of slumber and a pair of dilated eyeballs anyway?"

"Your beauty sleep."

"Hm. Speaking of beauty sleep, your hooligan breadwinner sure spends an awful lot of time dozing. Has he come down yet?"

This called for an irked frown, "If you're referring to Jess, no, my terrifically reliable mother spotted my 'hooligan breadwinner' loosening the screws on Taylor's ladder just this morning. Expect the issue of deficient housing implements to be brought up in the next town meeting."

"Ah. Chivalrous, isn't he?"

"Lancelot reincarnated."

"Aha," the end of a fulfilling conversation, and the Lane's patty melt. Rory prepared to supply pay for another round of Lane's sugar/saturated fat binge. That is, before catching the deceitful latter subtly eyeing the dingy stairs leading up to Luke's mystifyingly concealed apartment. Oh dear.

Lane motioned meaningfully towards the aforementioned coop, "Do you think…"

"No," the response came cardinally and equipped with an admonishing glare.

Apparently not admonishing enough, as this unfortunately failed to silence Lane, "Please? Please? Pleasepleaseplease--

"No."

"Come on!"

"No."

"He wouldn't have to know!"

Rory wouldn't budge, mentally and otherwise, "I may be new at this girlfriend business, but I've watched enough episodes of Days of Our Lives to know that rummaging about my boyfriend's living arrangement is a formula for getting kicked to the curb."

Lane frowned, pondering animatedly over her (lack of) Soap Opera Trivia, "I thought they got dumped for cheating."

"… Yes, that too. But the snooping pushed it over the edge."

Leaning towards desperate now, "Aren't you just a tiny bit curious of your hooligan breadwinner's little black book?"

Rory scowled, "Stop calling him that. And no, I highly doubt my 'hooligan breadwinner' as you put it, would be the kind of person to stash dear diary entries under a strawberry pillow."

Lane brightened, "He has a strawberry pillow?"

"Okay, we're leaving now, Nosy McBrown."

But Lane wasn't about to leave succumb without a fight. She was, in fact, throwing her hands up to the holy heavens, "Good grief! What is the big query? You've been in his room before, my paranoiac lovely."

"I have, yes. But that was when I was supposed to despise him with a thousand fists, thus the concept of potential intimateness was inevitably nonexistent, and with that eliminating the circumscription for the respect of his personal space and apathy towards his right to privacy."

Lane met this with a blank stare, before shaking her head and finally lifting herself from the seat with an bold scrape of chair-against-linoleum, "Well then…" commence mirthful stroll towards invasion of privacy, "…tell me when you change your mind." Permission to conduct herself in unorthodox activity did not exist as far as Lane-world was concerned. Next thing Rory knew, she was watching her best friend climb up the hierarchy towards the violation of her newly-dubbed breadwinner's deserted lax zone.

Shoot. Ah, what was there left to do? Rory soon found herself reluctantly trailing her friend into the not-so-deserted-anymore lax zone. Only for a peek, she told herself. And she figured if there were undergarments of any kind draped over ceiling fans or strange omnipresent collections of toenail scraps littered across the coffee tables, a quick exit stage left (and perhaps a mail-order maid) wouldn't be too much of a hassle.

Rory slowed as she reached the door, "Lane? A man's nest is a incomprehensible dwelling. I would hardly want you to face this arduous journey in companionless solitude."

Lane emerged from the apartment, "Okay, we can go now."

Blink once. Blink twice. Enter incredulity. Disbelief. Agitation. Deep homicidal impulses, "Remind me, my dear Laney, was it you or your demanding shoulder satan who wanted to snoop through my hooligan breadwinner's little black book?"

"Oh yes. About that. It's a little less snoop, a little more steal. Saves more sand in the hourglass, see?" Lane started down the stairs, a journey cut short with the blockage provided by Rory's outstretched arms.

"You're robbing my idiot boyfriend of his possessions!"

"No, I am robbing your idiot boyfriend of _my _possessions turned his possessions after he took my possession into his possession resulting in a bribery involving me doing his biology homework every withering day in exchange for the secrecy of my embarrassingly palsy-walsy impulsive scribbles."

Rory contemplated this briefly, before concluding slowly, "…My idiot boyfriend stole your diary," strangely not thrown off track by the otherwise mind-boggling babbling rolling out the mouth of her atypical friend.

"Yes. I record my deepest darkest blathers in my baby here. Corny lyrics included. And I hope he knows that he picked the wrong broad to mess with, because I will now make it my duty to write obscene letters addressed to every last one of his teachers and sign his name at the bottom, starting with Mrs. Witterchucker. _Dear Mrs. Witterchutter, if you are wondering why my grades are so bad, it is because your ass blocks my view of the blackboard everytime you stand up_ --"

"Where did you find it?" Rory cut in, consuming herself in thoughts of poor Mrs. Witterchutter contemplating possible liposuction.

"Oh. Under the pillow, like you said. Disappointingly enough, it wasn't strawberry."

Rory was now just beginning to realize the full extent of damage and heartless villainy her hooligan breadwinner was capable of, "Does he do this a lot?" she asked carefully, cautious of the fact she was treading through troubled waters.

Lane wasted no time in responding, "You mean blackmail innocents into bending in shape of his evil amusement?" she nodded energetically, "Yes. He's Jack Nicholson's Joker reincarnated as a manipulative yard bird. The twenty-first century Joseph Stalin. A while back he actually videotaped Mr. Robinson romancing the school secretary on top of the—

Rory's eyes at this point, were nearly protruding from their sockets, as a thought (reminiscence, really) collapsed on her shoulders, "Good god, the tape recorder."

"What? No, I said videotaped. Anyways, that day during the assembly—

"That schmuck! My idiot boyfriend's grease palming Mr. Bigs!"

"Oookay. That's enough 21st Jump Street for you. Where was I? Oh yes. Back to my—

Unfortunately, Lane never got the chance to finish her story (or sentence, for that matter) as Luke had burst upon the scene, baster in hand and well-prepared to knock-out any unsuspecting robbers. ("Ah, it's just you," he'd said, relaxing his grip on the baster, "If you're looking to stick green dye in Jess' hair gel, it's down the bathroom, in the cabinet beside the box of Viagra," his voice turned sour, at that point, " -that your mother had so courteously purchased for me," before adding quickly to Lane, "her mother, not yours.")

With that amusing piece of information tucked away, Rory wasted no time in hunting down the elusive villain tagged Jess, bent on draining every last bit of information for his wicked mind and perhaps even hang him out to dry when his confessions became redundantly arid.

She found him sitting tediously on the bridge, the very essence of a mealy-mouthed varmint. And Rory didn't hesitate in carrying out the déjà vu she'd been keen on repeating ever since their unpleasant (hateful, futile, abhorred) reunion many moons back.

Or in simpler form, Rory sees Jess. Rory stomps over to Jess. Jess comments on her strenuously loud walking. Rory shoves his jack-headed ass in the lake.

Resurfacing, Jess was quick to commence cursing instantaneously, "You… " gurgle, "…are a nutcase," sputter.

Rory's state of mind wasn't at all dissimilar, "You schmuck! I nearly had my head blown to chunks of bleeding corpuscles in a monstrous cerebral death for contributing in your lousy quest of domination-- and all you could do is insult my windshields and fool me into subconsciously escorting your holy narcissist be-hind on your villainous mission to penal institution!"

He squinted at her, thoroughly pissed off and thinking Rory was quite possibly a little kookier in the head than usual, "My what?"

"Mission! Your mission! To corrupt Mr. Bigs—don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about!"

Delirium is a difficult suit to follow.

"My mission? To where? Mars? Where all the ugly green aliens living in your mind reside?"

"Oh, don't tease," she bit back, "They live in Graceland."

"You know what you should do? Sit yourself in front of the computer and click on one of those ads that say, 'seeking psychiatric help? Click here for a free trial!'"

"Pass. But you know what I _am_ going to do, Jess?"

He glared, "Enroll in Narcotics Anonymous sessions."

She glared right back, "Take up your own suggestions, Randle McMurphy. In the mean time, I'm going to burglarize your precious tape-recorder, and drive back to Mr.Bigs' house equipped with a bulletproof vest to return it to him."

"No, you aren't."

Earnestly steaming, "Yes, I am."

"_No_, you aren't. Rory, stop being such a pain in the ass."

Gaping, "You did not just call me that."

"You're right. I actually meant to call you a bipolar crackbrain, but the thought didn't spring up fast enough."

"I hope you rot in that lake! And that your skin starts to resemble a withering prune and the tissues in your carcass begin to absorb murky lake water and cause your chassis to bloat up to the shape of a beach ball!"

"Jesus, Rory!" Jess was obviously not secretive while expressing stress or strain in apperception. But fortunately, his freezing-yet-moderately-efficient intelligent brain cells managed to perceive that yelling was not going to help him paddle up the hierarchy, "Come here a second, will you?"

"You're in a lake."

_And who's fault is that?_ But he caught himself on that one, and instead chose to drag his soggy posterior out the large body of bitingly frigid water, "What do you need to know?"

She scoffed, and began to back into her original plan of 'burglarizing his precious tape recorder', "Do you seriously think I'm stupid enough to trust you to tell the truth?"

"Yes." Ah, shoot.

Rory scowled in reply. And Jess mentally kicked himself for not sewing his mouth shut when he had the chance.

And so it began. Mission to convey tape recorder, phase one: Run through the gazebo avoiding the dripping wet, though damnable inamorato's clutches. And that's exactly what she did.

Onlookers stopped to stare curiously at the couple, pondering with discombobulated minds before shrugging off queries and continuing on with their daily hankerings.

The soggy, damnable inamorato's clutches eventually caught up, and before long, managed with mild difficulty to drag his slightly-more-than-upset girlfriend behind a mass of miscellaneous rubbish (the dumpsite), where he proceeded to remove her jaws from his arm and consummate mouth-to-mouth as an affronted attempt to stop her excessive reproaching.

Unfortunately, this action of his resulted in a split lip and unflattering lump on the temple after Rory responded by biting frantically into his mouth and whacking the side of his head with her shoe, concluding unanimously that she was not adept in responding to unanticipated displays of passion.

He then offered to rent and watch This is Spinal Tap with her if she stopped pushing him large bodies of water.

She obliged reluctantly, despite that the seed of doubt embedded in her mind was fighting it's way through the tangles that were her conscience.

Concurrently, her interrogatory concerning the tape recorder was forgotten.

**And so it begins**

**AN: This chapter started off modestly short. But somehow through several modifications it expanded into a big mess of scenarios. My sincerest apologies if it sucked. Or if it didn't make sense. **


	10. Chapter 10

It wasn't until a week later that the subject of the tapes popped up again.

Rory had never been one to handle deficiency with grace. Unfortunately, she'd never been a person shop teachers favored very much either. Evidently, Rory found it unjust that favoritism (or in this case, lack of) could play such a crucial role in her GPA, and did not fail to address her complaints to the shop teacher.

"Rory," the teacher had spoken with eerie calmness, despite that the madly convulsing girl standing before him had accidentally dropped a hammer on his foot the day before, "The reason why you got a C in shop is has to do with an event that took place eight weeks ago."

"You mean when I set the sand paper on fire?"

"No, that was nine weeks ago."

"When I accidentally hit Jess in the face with the hot iron?"

"After that."

"…I almost tore Lane's fingers off with the dresser maple?"

"Presser table. And no, it was before that."

"You're going to have to specify, sir."

As it turned out, a tight-lipped knot had been apparent on her shop grade since the beginning of the quarter.

Her first project, a ceramic elephant, ended up blown to bits after she'd accidentally set the furnace on a high. Sadly, she (along with every other kid's project that had the misfortune of sharing a rack with hers) received an F on that assignment.

Furthermore, her woodburning- of which was essentially supposed to resemble the picture of a 'shadowy lighthouse', subsequencially ended up more 'shadowy' than 'lighthouse' after a brief attack by the forces of nature. Apparently leaving a murderously hot piece of tin next to an oily rag formulated a giant bombardment of flames.

As a result of her savagely destructive actions, Rory, always the unrelenting overachiever, found herself caught in a hapless ordeal.

Fail the easiest class known to caveman, or delay her social life to make up assignments in the time allotted after school. Indubitably, it was the latter.

Not a lot of people could be found on a Thursday afternoon- post learning hours. The woodshop teacher, not crazy enough to leave Rory Gilmore alone in a room with a hot iron, was indebted to stay with her. But eventually, torpor took its course on the pitiable man, and Rory was indeed left by herself with a hot iron while her teacher blew his Z's in the land of Nod.

Ceramic elephants were harder to make than they looked. It involved a good bucket of hand/hand coordination and the ability to use a stove, both of which she poorly lacked due to pathetic genetics from her mother's side.

But Rory had managed to push through it eventually. Sure, she'd settled for the microwave in the teacher's lounge as a strategic substitute for the furnace, but never mind that. A gloopy, melting elephant was better than no elephant. Rory figured sucking up with a couple 'Gee Mr G, you've been looking less fat' lines should do the rest.

After Operation Ceramic Elephant was completed, Rory had all intentions of heading home. Home sweet home, where she looked forward to fuss to her mother over her lack of domestic skills. This, however, never happened.

One was because the shop teacher was not as impressed with oozing clay-ish specimen as one might hope. Thus, Rory was forced to use the furnace, while the teacher dropped back into his much-needed beauty sleep.

So off she went on her merry-fuming way to the home-economics room, figuring an oven and a furnace to have many-a-thing-in-common. This was a mistake, as it was the cause of the unveilment of--

Two, the tapes. Rory had discovered the tapes all by accident, but when she did, boy was she sorry.

It started off innocently enough, she'd set the oven on fire. As a last attempt to salvage her beloved GPA, Rory managed to Ladder 49 her violently abused ceramic elephant by sticking an el cheapo fork in the further-more maltreated objet trouvé.

Gravely, our heroine overlooked a slight deficiency in her wordlessly moronic actions. Yes, fire was hot.

So the poor burning elephant, after being impulsively tossed from the hands of a rueful schoolgirl screaming of conspiracy, proceeded to eat up half the couch with it's flames.

At that point, not even Rory's genius decision to make use of the nearest fire extinguisher could've helped that ceramic elephant from meeting it's doom.

The fire was put out, and Rory gave up all hopes of passing shop. Figuring the least she could do was conceal the scorched sofa, Rory began the literally back-breaking task of dragging the behemoth out to the dumpsters.

She was halfway out the door when the first tape was discovered, casually apparent as monstrous cotton couch-stuffing poked out beside its dormant form. Wondering what kind of idiot stuck a videotape in a place where people rested their napping posteriors, Rory removed the object-in-question from its prison.

'How nice,' she thought, 'Now what could it possibly be? An episode on the evolution of sandwich fungus? _Mary-Kate and Ashley's Sleepover Party_?

Far from it, actually. Her eyes widened as she caught sight of the messy words imprinted across the side.

'Mr. G and S's closet-sex footage'

The tape was hurled across the room in disgust, and then retrieved after Rory decided to spare the vacuum lady from the atrocity.

As far as she was concerned, there was only one Mr G in the school. And that was the lazy bum dozing away in the metalshop room with the hot iron she'd unintentionally left on. She couldn't think of any reason why anyone would want to have sex with that guy. Scratch that, she didn't want to think about sex and Mr G in any context at all.

"Ew…." Rory sniveled, engulfed with the shuddering ickiness that comes with the territory of imagining your educator partaking in crimes of passion. Purged with the sudden desire to become a nun, she made a hasty effort to stick the tape back inside the couch. As a result, two, three, then five other cases of black plastic came into view. Good grief, it was an entire empire of porno films.

She yanked the second case from the cotton padding. 'Mr. G and S's classroom-sex footage', it read, in the same discordant scrawl. The painfully familiar discordant scrawl.

Rory scowled at the lettering, having recognized it as belonging to the very same lunkhead who wrote insulting gibberish all over the margins of her Anne of Green Gables.

"Jess, that sick buffoon," she muttered, yanking the couch cushion of distorted tapes along with her on the quest to liquefy the hooligan.

OOOOOOO

"Soda or vodka?"

Rory tried remaining collected under the not-yet-liquefied hooligan's scrutinizing gaze, though failing madly as thoughts of the tapes resurfaced. "I'm actually not very thirsty Jess. My appetite for all things toothsome has been tainted."

Jess cast her a long glance, the third one that evening, "We have chairs, you know." He was referring to her insistence on sitting upon the polluted sofa cushion dragged arduously off the back of the late Home Ec couch all the way up to Luke's apartment. There'd been a couple funny looks and a few fingers pointed in her direction, but never mind, that was not the issue here.

"Oh yes, those chairs. No thank you, I prefer to sit on this. It's like comparing generic toilet paper to Charmin'. Inconceivable." It really was.

His gaze didn't leave the cushion, "Uh huh. It looks painfully similar to couch in the Home Ec room."

Rory chuckled nervously, patting the seat a little too enthusiastically, "What? You mean this fellow? No! No it is not the cushion of the couch located in the Home Economics room, although it may appear to be of the same material, it is in fact, not." Not even Pinocchio could match up to her horrendous lying credentials.

Jess knew this. "Get off."

Rory frowned, "Excuse me?"

"How many cushions have twenty different forms of swear words written out on the side? Get off the cushion, Gilmore."

She crossed her arms with admirably mulish panache, overlooking that it was often considered folksy to sit on moth-eaten woolsacks. "For your information Jess Mariano, I appear to have developed a recent infatuation for all things relating to testosterone-fueled sleazeballs, this happens to include the forms of blasphemy they use."

"And apparently their butt-rests as well. Stop being such a ballsy pighead and get off my tapes." Jess made a brash grab for the cushion

Rory pulled it instinctively from his line of contact, "Aha! So you admit it!"

"I never denied it, idiot."

"Well you implied it, jerk."

"You don't know what's inside them, give it to me." The gangland glare was now in order.

"Oh really? Because I think it was written out pretty clearly, regardless of your slovenly penmanship."

Gangland glare fizzled out to mere displeasure. "Good grief. Then tell me. Tell me what's inside the couch."

"This," she shook the latter, "is not a couch. It is a cushion. And you know perfectly well what's inside the--"

He made a dive for the cushion. And though emerging successful, Jess soon discovered himself, however eminent in his tackling qualifications, arising turbulently empty-handed.

The cushion was tossed. "You stole my tapes."

"No actually, I stashed them. And I will burn them and they will be lost forever until there are some heartwarming confessions done right now, as you sit vulnerably atop my palm. Oh wait- but if you even begin to describe in gruesome detail what intimate hankerings are contained in these sin-cases of plastic--"

"For the love of god, they're not a sex tapes."

"Nice try, bud."

"They're footage of the varsity coach stealing funds from the treasury."

Rory scoffed from her cross-legged position on the floor, unfazed by the fact Jess was now towering over her form, "What, do you think I was born yesterday?"

"You sure act like it."

"Ah, burn. I don't believe you."

"Then go ahead and watch them."

Her mouth dropped, "Like hell!"

"Luke's been on my back lately, so I wrote sex-tape on them to get Mr. G to lift my shop grade, after your stupid ceramic elephant exploded in that furnace and broke my pot."

Oh yes. That.

"He and Shane were involving in this whole illegal sex escapade thing for a while, and I figured I'd do the smart thing and use her promiscuous tendencies to my advantage."

Promiscuous indeed.

This new revelation was pondered briefly, "But…you… Gah, you're such a beatnik! Why in the world would you hide it at school? And in a flammable couch of all things."

"Easy access."

"Idiot."

"Yes. Can I have my tapes back now?"

"Ha. No sooner should I stick forks in my nose."

"That can be arranged."

How dare he. "How dare you. Now you can't have your tapes back."

"Then I'll find them."

Rory resisted the urge to chuckle sinisterly. "Will you?" she asked gleefully, failing to appear unoffending, "Because while you were off shooting squirrels as a tot, I was playing scavenger hunt with all the normal little kids."

"You forget that you often hid your retainer in my sink."

She chose to ignore the comment. "Do you know what karma is, Jess Mariano?"

"A series of coincidental events often mistaken as twists of fate for the comfort-seeking god-may-help-us-ers."

"Yes, well then irony-" and evidently morbidity, "-will rule the world again. Your tapes, for the time being, are mine. Do you know what this is called, Jess?"

"Foreplay."

Ah, she decided to high-hat that as well. "This is called consequences for your petulant blackmailing of guileless beings where in return you yourself and you are having your own disgusting cough medicine shoved back down your esophagus." Awfully long title.

"Whatever. I don't really care about the tapes anyway."

"Haha! I know what you're doing!" she pointed an accusing finger at the airily blasé boy, "This is called reversed psychology! You slimy slug—

"They're junk."

"You're trying to trick me! But no matter, I watch Dr Phil. And as Dr Phil, I say that you are a compulsive liar!"

"Jeez…"

"Not so smart now, are you?"

"No, I'm just wondering how long it'd take this idiot girl pointing her finger at me to realize she's got a tape sticking out of her jacket."

Oh curses. She made a futile try at concealing the tape once more, only to find herself savagely tackled and eventually straggled in a vicious headlock. Rory pondered briefly on whether or not this was a low-cost substitute for the candy and flowers thing other couples were doing. Perhaps Jess was too thifty to afford chocolate hearts and sunflowers, maybe that was why he was trying to throttle her in the middle of the living room.

His fingers closed on the plastic, wrenching the tape from her disadvantaged grasp in a barreling lurch. Her hands instinctively moved to recollect the possession, opening her mouth to yell blasphemies at the imbecilic barbarian lying astraddle on her poor crushed form.

It was her fourth Godzilla mistake that day, as she soon discovered herself wasting her denunciations through Jess' mouth.

'You heinous bastard' transpired as 'Blue paint is mustard', and 'Get off me' was reduced to 'Ticks on fleas.'

The insults remained unheard. So Rory, having learned a thing or two from Ralph Macchio, did not hesitate any longer to bash Jess first in the gut, then on the side of the head with her fist. Unconcerned with the prospect of him possibly receiving brain or spleen damage, she jerked the tape (and her mouth, for that matter) back into her custody.

Her next impulse was to forrest gump her damn ass out of the agonizing Hades den. And just as the illustrious concept of freedom tasted fresh over her tongue, it was shattered, after realizing her face was now mashed into the carpet.

Determining that the determinant of the misery of her face was Jess, who managed to get a good hold of her knees and was in the process of aspiring to snatch back the video, Rory aimed to kick the aggressor's ill-used noggin. When this failed, she settled for her last resort.

"Luke!" she shouted, still holding the tape above her head, "Jess is manhandling me!"


End file.
